When attitudes and habits don't correspond: Self-control depletion increases persuasion but not behavior

Changing attitudes does not necessarily involve the same psychological processes as changing behavior, yet social psychology is only just beginning to identify the different mechanisms involved. We contribute to this understanding by showing that the moderators of attitude change are not necessarily the moderators of behavior change. The results of three studies (Ns = 98, 104, 137) employing an ego depletion manipulation indicate that although people are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when executive control is reduced they are not more likely to change their behavior. Rather, under conditions of ego depletion, attitudes became less correlated with behaviors after persuasion. Moreover, in Study 3, we provide an explanation for this phenomenon: People are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when depleted but are also more likely to fall back on habits that may conflict with their new evaluations. A mini meta-analysis of the data indicated that ego-depletion had a medium effect size on the difference between attitude change and behavior change, N = 339, d¯ = − 0.51, 95% CI [− 0.72, − 0.29]. Jointly, these studies suggest an integrative, resource-based explanation to attitude-behavior discrepancies subsequent to persuasion.