Attitude stability as a moderator of the relationships between cognitive and affective attitudes and behaviour

Temporal stability is assumed to be an important basis for attitudes being strong predictors of behaviour, but this notion has been little tested. The current research reports tests of temporal stability in moderating the attitude–behaviour relationship, specifically in relation to cognitive attitude (i.e., evaluation implied by cognitions about an attitude object) and affective attitude (i.e., evaluation implied by feelings about the attitude object). In three prospective studies (Study 1: physical activity, N = 909; Study 2: multiple health behaviours, N = 281; Study 3: smoking initiation, N = 3,371), temporal stability is shown to moderate the cognitive and affective attitudes to subsequent behaviour relationship in two-, three-, and four-wave designs utilizing between- (Studies 1 and 3) and within-participants (Study 2) analyses and controlling for past behaviour. Effects were more consistent for affective attitudes (when affective and cognitive attitudes were considered simultaneously and past behaviour controlled). Moderation effects were attenuated, but remained significant, in three- and four-wave compared with two-wave designs. The findings underline the role of temporal stability as an indicator of strength and confirm the relative importance of affective over cognitive (components of) attitudes for predicting behaviour.