Attitudes are built on earlier experience and help people to make sense of their environment [1]. As such, attitudes play a central role in life and make up a large part of our daily thoughts, emotions, and behavioural processes [2]. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects, people still construct attitudes on the spot in order to respond to unfamiliar situations or attitude objects [3]. While attitudes are formed for both familiar and unfamiliar objects, the way in which these attitudes are formed can be different. The current paper investigates differences between attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects.

Individuals confronted with familiar attitude objects have stored evaluations in memory. If we consider attitudes as summary object-evaluation linkages and/or object-feature-evaluation linkages [4] that find their basis in cognitive and affective associations in memory [1, 5, 6], there are extensive object-evaluation linkages available for familiar objects. After individuals have been repeatedly exposed to attitude objects, additional exposures have reinforced such associations through a process of conditioning, especially if accumulating evidence has been consistent with prior knowledge [7, 8]. This results in a stable, crystallised attitude [3] that can draw upon learned cognitions such as facts and statements [9] but also in learned emotional responses such as somatic markers that are associated with past outcomes [10] and learned regulation of emotion [11]. Having an established knowledge base, consisting of relevant affective and cognitive information and experience, allows the formation of attitudes based on both cognition and affect [9, 12].

Individuals confronted with unfamiliar attitude objects, however, do not have a fully fledged evaluation of the object stored in memory. People are, nevertheless, somehow able to construct attitudes toward unfamiliar attitudes on the spot, based on whatever relevant associations are available in the current context [1, 3, 13, 14]. This raises the question what object-feature linkages will become available while constructing attitudes toward unfamiliar attitude objects. It is consistently found that, after repeated exposure to a stimulus, people will begin to react more positively to a once-novel attitude object, even without conscious evaluation [14–16]. This provides evidence that affective responses happen more quickly and possibly do not even require cognitive evaluations of attitude objects. In this way, affective object-feature linkages can rapidly emerge toward unfamiliar attitude objects. In realistic contexts, new attitude objects will rarely exist in complete isolation from anything encountered before, since attitude objects generally do not exist independently of social processes and other contextual factors [17]. Hence, in a realistic context, people will have been exposed (unconsciously or otherwise) to some features around the unfamiliar attitude object and can infer meaning from existing knowledge about related familiar attitude objects [18]. Therefore, some object-feature linkages for unfamiliar attitude objects will become activated, even if no cognitive elaboration on the new object has ever taken place. In such cases, where no cognitive inferences have yet been developed, affective responses can already be mobilised [14, 19]. This could explain why affect consistently contributes to attitude formation of unfamiliar realistic attitude objects such as, for example, carbon dioxide storage, genetic modification of food products and nanotechnology (see, for example, [20, 21]). Supporting this line of reasoning is previous research that has shown that attitudes in cases with a lack of concrete factual information are often based on affect [22, 23], which, compared to cognitive weighing of pros and cons, requires less formal information in decision-making [24]. By serving as information regarding how one feels about the attitude object, these affective associations are able to influence judgements even in the absence of crystallised cognitive or affective object-feature-evaluation linkages. In the absence of clear object-evaluation linkages, a decision based on affect is often more informative than one based on cognition, as people can more easily access the broader range of affective feelings than the few available cognitive associations [25, 26]. Hence, in situations of limited knowledge, it is more likely that people will access affective assocations toward an unfamiliar object than construct cognitive object linkages.

In this way, depending on familiarity, attitudes may find their basis in more or less elaborate affective object linkages (feelings and emotions) and/or cognitive object linkages (beliefs and thoughts) [27, 28], which represent the affective and cognitive attitude components of the overall attitude [9, 29].

Therefore our first hypothesis is:

Although, in the process of attitude formation, people in principle have access to a rich network of cognitive and affective feature evaluations, in most daily decisions they are unlikely to access all of that information. If the object is familiar, that is in cases where both cognitive and affective object-evaluation linkages are available, individuals are at liberty to use any combination of affective object-evaluation or cognitive object-evaluation linkages that leads to a clear evaluation. Differences in individual preferences for affect or cognition will play an important role in determining to what extent people rely more on affect or cognition in attitude formation in this type of situation. Some people have a high versus low need for cognition and/or high versus low faith in intuition, reflecting differences in reliance on rational cognitive resources and affective intuitive resources. People with a high need for cognition rely on the cognitive system, making cognitive beliefs important in forming judgements [30–32], while people with a high faith in intuition rely on the intuitive system and show a strong reliance on feelings in their judgements [31–33]. People with a clear preferred thinking style (high need for cognition and low faith in intuition or vice versa) will rely on either cognition or on affect, depending on their preference. For instance, people with a high faith in intuition seek out affective information while forming attitudes and are more strongly persuaded by affective messages. In the same way people with a high need for cognition, look for cognitive information while forming attitudes [34]. In this way chronic individual differences are important determinants why attitudes are more affect-based or cognition-based [35].

If the object is unfamiliar, however, cognitive object-evaluation linkages are hardly available, while affective-evaluation linkages remain to a larger extent available. For unfamiliar attitude objects, individuals are restricted in relying on cognitive evaluations and therefore can only fall back on more intuitive and affective processes. Thus, even when individuals have a high need for cognition, an analytical approach to information processing might fall short for unfamiliar objects [36]. It is therefore expected that, for unfamiliar attitude objects, a preference for a cognitive thinking style will not relevantly shift the process to a more cognition-driven process. As affect is less dependent on information, affect will have a similarly high influence on the overall attitude for both familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects, for people having a high faith in intuition. A high influence of affect on overall attitude is expected even in the case of low faith in intuition for unfamiliar attitude objects. Thus, for unfamiliar attitude objects individual differences might not always be important determinants why attitudes are more affect-based or cognition-based.

Hence, we hypothesise that:

The hypotheses were tested in an experimental survey in the Netherlands in the context of technological applications. Nanotechnology, an existing yet little known novel technology, was used to study a range of unfamiliar attitude objects. The range of unfamiliar nanotechnology attitude objects was compared comparing to a similar range of familiar variants. Nanotechnology provides a good research context to operationalise unfamiliar realistic attitude objects as, at the time of the study, people had limited knowledge about nanotechnology and its applications [37]. Nanotechnology is involved with the manipulation of materials at the smallest possible physical levels (i.e. molecular or atomic levels). It enables the creation of completely new products, as well as the substantial improvement of properties of existing products [38]. By focusing on nanotechnology-facilitated improvement of existing products, nanotechnology not only provides a good research context to operationalise realistic unfamiliar attitude objects but also allows for comparison between similar unfamiliar and familiar attitude objects. Nanotechnology also allows us to select from a broad range of applications, which may be associated with different potential advantages and disadvantages, helping to show robustness of results.

While 71.9% of respondents recalled having heard of the term nanotechnology, only 39% of respondents reported knowing its meaning. Thus, in general, knowledge about nanotechnology is low. In addition, the proportion of respondents indicating knowledge about the selected nanotechnology applications was lower (27%) than the proportion of respondents indicating knowledge about their conventional counterpart (55%), χ² (7) = 93.71, p <. 05, Cramer’s V = .12; this confirmed the successful operationalisation of familiarity by presenting respondents with conventional versus nano-based applications.

This study showed that attitude formation processes for realistic unfamiliar attitude objects rely more on affect than is the case for realistic familiar attitude objects. By focusing on unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, where some knowledge in the context can be expected, the current study addresses the gap between attitude research that either focused on attitude objects where a meaningful reference point is lacking (e.g. fictitious attitude objects) or focused on familiar attitude objects. The present study achieved this by presenting similar applications with and without the use of a new unfamiliar technology: nanotechnology.

The results showed that, for the more familiar attitude objects, cognition is more predictive for the overall attitude. On the other hand, for realistic unfamiliar attitude objects, affect is more predictive for the overall attitude. This supports the proposition that, in attitude formation toward familiar attitude objects, people in principle have access to a rich network of affective and cognitive associations and feature evaluations. For familiar attitude objects, evaluation (the extent to which people rely on affect or cognition) is guided by people’s preferred thinking style. Consistent with previous research, people with high need for cognition rely more on cognition in attitude formation and people with high faith in intuition rely more on affect [31, 34, 35].

The current study shows that people with high need for cognition rely more on the influence of cognition on overall attitude, both for familiar and also (contrary to the expectations) for unfamiliar attitude objects. Previous research showed that, for unfamiliar attitude objects without meaningful reference points, repeated exposure leads to positive affective feelings in the lack of a solid knowledge base [14, 16]. Our study shows that, with realistic unfamiliar attitude objects, cognitions can be constructed or derived from the realistic context if individuals have a high need for cognition. Thus, cognitions can be used to some extent toward unfamiliar attitude objects. A possible explanation for this, which should be further investigated, could be that individuals in the current study with a high need for cognition also had higher education levels and are therefore more familiar with nanotechnology and have a better comprehension of nanotechnology, leading to attitudes that are based more on factual (cognitive) information.

The current study extends previous research on faith in intuition in relation to affective focus for unfamiliar attitude objects. For unfamiliar attitude objects, both high- and low-intuitive people rely on affect, while for familiar attitude objects in particular, people with high faith in intuition rely on affect. This implies that, for people with low faith in intuition, affect can still be considered as a default heuristic [50], making best sense of unfamiliar realistic attitude objects.

We presented respondents with unfamiliar realistic attitudes delivering potential benefits in an unfamiliar way (based on nanotechnology). As the selected attitude object is a technology application, and the unfamiliar variant is a similar application based on a novel technology, technophobia or consumer resistance against technology may play a role [51]. Specifically, with new technologies, ‘unknown’ can quickly turn into ‘unloved’, as happened for instance in the case of genetically modified food [52]. Yet, as the technology context brings in specific characteristics for nanotechnology, most will also be applicable for their conventional alternatives. In addition, attitude objects in a technology context are more utilitarian in nature, which might trigger more cognitively based attitudes. It is however also the case that for unfamiliar attitude objects in a technology context attitudes are more strongly based in affect. Nevertheless, future research should focus on other unfamiliar attitude objects that deliver familiar benefits in an unfamiliar way (for instance when smartphones just came onto the market). Hence, research should be extended to include different unfamiliar objects to generalise these findings and to control for specific context-dependent heuristics.

Respondents were provided descriptions about the attitude objects in order to make any sense of the stimuli. Careful pilot testing confirmed that the scenarios were emotionally neutral. The elaborateness of information of the scenarios may however have contributed to a factual basis, necessary to construct cognitive attitudes, and thus may have reduced hypothesised effects that were nevertheless observed. Providing a short scenario only once will do little to support the creation of lasting cognitive or affective associations. Research following longitudinal exposure to the technology in real-life context would be a more relevant way to study familiarisation of the new technology. In addition, in future research it is also important to investigate whether the relative influence of affect and cognition on overall attitudes hold when the available context information changes. For instance, when there is little or no information about unfamiliar objects presented, as is often the case in real life.

Attitudes were assessed in a representative adult sample of the Netherlands (i.e. as opposed to a student sample), less familiar with technological innovations. This supports the predictive and explanatory value of the cognitive–affective attitude structure for the general population. A disadvantage of survey research is however that it is not possible to disentangle the underlying processes in attitude formation [53] or biases observed with self-report measures [54]. In order to get a deeper understanding of how affective and cognitive processes influence the attitude formation process, additional methods that do not rely (completely or partially) on self-reports should be used in future research. Techniques such as time-pressured answering or psychophysiological measures, such as heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, eye-tracking, or fMRI, extend the possibility to study the actual processes without interfering in the research context, and provide deeper insights about underlying processes [55]. It is pragmatically impossible to apply these to large representative samples; hence, a combination of large-scale population-based surveys, with focused experiments to further understand the underlying processes, is recommended for future research.

As a final remark, it should be emphasised that communication toward the general public is often cognitive in nature, with a focus explaining and rationalising new things and innovations [56]. The present study shows that it is important (or even essential) to anticipate emotions and address people’s affect in communication toward the general public. This study shows that, in order to understand how the public will respond to real-life innovations, in-depth understanding of the formation of attitudes and of the balance of affect and cognition toward unfamiliar but realistic attitude objects is essential. While cognition plays a role in attitude formation toward unfamiliar realistic attitude objects when people have a high need for cognition, in general, affect is the more influential predictor of attitudes toward unfamiliar realistic objects.