Social Psychology-Do Humans control their attitudes?

As human beings we tend to like to believe we have absolute free will. It makes us uncomfortable to think that our behavior may not be entirely in our control. In our Western culture, furthermore, we typically believe that our outward behavior should coincide with our inward attitudes. We generally feel it is desirable to act in ways that remain loyal to our beliefs and attitudes. We have historically believed that attitude drives behavior. However, social psychologists have, in a variety of ways, challenged or qualified the assumption that our attitudes have a causal effect on our behavior. Some researchers have taken the extreme position that there exists little if any attitude-behavior relationship whatsoever. Others challenge common sense assumptions by maintaining that it is behavior that influences attitude. Further, other researchers argue for the existence of moderators that influence the attitude-behavior correlation.
The notion that behavior influences attitudes con...