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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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The Feature-Positive Effect, Attitude Strength, and Degree of Perceived Consensus

Scott T. Allison

University of Richmond

David M. Messick

University of California, Santa Barbara

The feature-positive effect refers to the tendency in animals and humans to experience difficulty processing nonoccurrences. The present study investigated the role of this phenomenon in self-perception and in estimates of consensus. Subjects were asked to express a preference either by doing something, the active response, or by doing nothing, the passive response. Afterward, subjects' attitudes on the issue were measured and they were asked to estimate the percentage of their peers who would have responded similarly. The results revealed that subjects who responded actively held significantly stronger attitudes in the direction of their responses than did subjects who responded passively. Moreover, active respondents' consensus estimates were significantly greater than those of passive respondents. Interpretations of these results are discussed.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 2, 231-241 (1988)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167288142002
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