View article

The functional theorists believed that people hold attitudes because these attitudes serve particular needs that people have-such as to understand the world, fit in with others, express important values, have high self-es-teem, and so forth (see Katz, 1960; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956). For example, a person might develop a prejudice toward a minority group because this negative evaluation of the out-group makes the person feel better about the in-group and him-or herself. Research on attitude functions requires some method for assessing the functions served by attitudes, and contemporary theorists haveidentified a number of ways in which attitude functions can be identified. One method relies on individual differences and suggests that most attitudes serve different functions for different people. For example, for some people, most attitudes might serve a value-expressive function but for others, most …