| 18th–19th c. — Posture & Stance | Attitude = bodily posture, stance (“strike an attitude”). | — | — | — |
| 1910s–1930s — Early Import | Figurative “attitude” = demeanor, outlook. | Term enters psychology as mental readiness to act (Thomas & Znaniecki). | — | Precursors to “propositional attitude” talk in logic/semantics. |
| 1930s–1950s — Canonical Definition & Yale School | Attitude = general outlook/disposition. | Allport (1935): “mental/neural readiness.” Yale persuasion: source–message–audience; surveys, Likert, semantic differential. | Early info-processing metaphors. | Emergence of belief/desire as propositional attitudes. |
| 1950s–1970s — Consistency & Conflict | “Positive/negative attitude” in everyday talk. | Dissonance theory, balance theory: internal conflict drives change. Attitude scales proliferate. | Cognitive revolution integrates memory, control processes into persuasion. | Functionalism; propositional attitudes in RTM. |
| 1980s–2000s — Dual Processes & Strength | Colloquial “has an attitude” = sass/defiance. | ELM/HSM dual-process models. Attitude strength (accessibility, certainty, resistance) becomes central. Implicit measures emerge. | Associative vs. propositional debate; dual-process architecture. | Language-of-Thought, RTM; propositional attitudes central. Some dialogue with psych. |
| 2010s–2020s — Implicit/Explicit, Architecture, Ontology | Attitude = outlook or identity signal (social media). | Implicit bias, metacognition, inoculation, large-scale stability/change research. | Predictive processing, hybrid associative–propositional models, neuroscience of persuasion. | Belief vs. credence debates; are “attitudes” distinct? Mandelbaum and others emphasize slipperiness. |