Attitudes beyond associations: On the role of propositional representations in stimulus evaluation

The idea that attitudes are associations in memory has been very influential. We highlight an alternative perspective according to which stimulus evaluation is mediated by propositional representations. Unlike simple associations, which are merely links between nodes via which activation can spread, propositional representations are units of information that specify how events are related and that have a truth value. We review research on attitude acquisition and attitude activation that was inspired by this propositional perspective. This research reveals surprising parallels between phenomena that are often assumed to be fundamentally different (e.g., evaluative conditioning vs. persuasion; implicit vs. explicit evaluation) but also interesting differences that provide the impetus for future research.