ABSTRACT Complex system models of attitudes, such as the Hierarchical Ising Opinion Model (HIOM), suggest that a person's involvement in an attitude object could be linked to attitude extremity and polarization. Despite its potential to integrate various theories of attitude change and despite the implications it could hold for attitude research, this assumption has not yet been studied systematically. We investigate the role of involvement in five large‐scale, representative surveys on general political orientation and attitudes towards the EU and COVID‐19 vaccines, conducted in 79 different countries over the last 8 years. We propose criteria to classify the degree of ideological divergence and introduce a modality detection measure suited for ordinal data and large sample sizes. We find that involvement is linked to attitude extremity and that predictions of HIOM are validated in a topic‐specific dataset on COVID‐19 vaccines. Results on political orientation and general attitudes towards the EU show either no effect of involvement or patterns that contradict HIOM's predictions. We discuss implications for the measurement of involvement, complex system models of attitudes and polarization research.

Madlen Hoffstadt

Iris Smal

Han van der Maas

Javier Garcia‐Bernardo

European Journal of Social Psychology

Topics covered include, among others, intergroup relations, group processes, social cognition, attitudes, social influence and persuasion, self and identity, verbal and nonverbal communication, language and thought, affect and emotion, embodied and situated cognition and individual differences of social-psychological relevance.    Together with original research articles, the European Journal of Social Psychology"s innovative and inclusive style is reflected in the variety of articles published:    Research Article: Original articles that provide a significant contribution to the understanding of social phenomena, up to a maximum of 12,000 words in length.

The European Journal of Social Psychology covers a wide range of topics, including intergroup relations, group processes, social cognition, attitudes, social influence and persuasion, self and identity, verbal and nonverbal communication, language and thought, affect and emotion, embodied and situated cognition, and individual differences of social-psychological relevance. In addition to original research articles, the journal's innovative and inclusive style is reflected in the variety of articles published: Research Articles are original contributions that significantly enhance the understanding of social phenomena, with a maximum length of 12,000 words.

《European Journal of Social Psychology》涵盖的主题包括群际关系、群体过程、社会认知、态度、社会影响与说服、自我与身份、言语与非言语沟通、语言与思维、情感与情绪、具身与情境认知，以及与社会心理学相关的个体差异等。该期刊不仅发表原创研究文章，还以其创新和包容的风格，展示了多样化的文章类型：研究文章是指对社会现象理解有重要贡献的原创文章，字数最多为12,000字。

Category	Quartile
心理学	2
心理学, 心理学社会	2

Involvement as a Polarizing Factor?—A Comprehensive Multi‐Method Analysis across Representative Datasets

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL	2