Elaboration moderates reliance on metacognitive assessments: The case of attitude certainty

The circumstances under which people are more likely to use their attitude certainty were examined. Across three studies, participants shared their attitudes on current topics (e.g. refugees). Then, attitude certainty was either measured or manipulated, depending on the study. Elaboration was assessed via need for cognition or manipulated after forming attitudes and certainty, just before the behavioural decision. Attitudes, certainty, and elaboration served as predictors of different behavioural outcomes (e.g. enrolling in a mentoring programme). As predicted, attitudes guided behaviour. Furthermore, the greater the certainty, the greater attitude-behaviour correspondence (A-B consistency), replicating the traditional effect. Most relevant, the effect of already existing attitude certainty in moderating A-B consistency was more likely to occur for high (vs. low) elaboration participants. Following Self-Validation Theory (Briñol & Petty, Psychol. Rev., 129, 2022, 340), this research showed that elaboration can moderate reliance on metacognition determining A-B consistency.