Abstract
Active behavioral responses produce stronger attitudes and higher perceived consensus than passive nonresponses — the feature-positive difficulty with nonoccurrences shapes self-perception (Allison & Messick, 1988).
Allison, S. T., & Messick, D. M. (1988). The feature-positive effect, attitude strength, and degree of perceived consensus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14(2), 231–241. DOI
Key findings
- Feature-positive effect: — Organisms process present features more readily than absent (nonoccurrence) features.
- Active vs passive — Doing something vs doing nothing after a preference prompt.
Application
When clicking “agree” on a poll strengthens conviction more than silently skipping — Allison and Messick show active expression inflates both attitude strength and imagined consensus — open this cite for the study behind the move.