>
> And of course, they became active without any substantive transformation of
> their attitudes or values; they are either born that way or they fall like manna
> on their neurons.
>
> Mutually constitutive *dynamic* causality for $200.00 please, Alex.
The research on attitudes and behavior is relevant here. In principle, sure, attitudes and behavior could be "mutually constitutive"; however, there are two problems with this claim.
1. Attitudes are atrocious predictors of behavior. I know we are socialized to believe that "people do what they want", but the correlation between attitudes and relevant behaviors is minimal.
2. In study after study, social psychologists have found that attitudes are the dependent variable, not the independent variable. That is, social conditions shift, behaviors shift, and then as a result we see the attitudinal shifts. For instance, one researcher found that young white adults in college tended to develop more positive attitudes about other racial groups after engaging in social activities with members of those groups, not before! So the proper causal direction is not "I'm tolerant, so I'll hang with people from different racial groups"; rather, it's "these college activities involve people from different racial groups, and I change my attitude to be consistent with this situation and pattern of behavior."
I know this challenges our common sense understanding, but (shout out to Jim F. and radical behaviorists everywhere!) attitudes are epiphenomenal. Social change does not require widespread individual attitude change; it requires shifts in social institutions and social conditions. If we accomplish that, people's attitudes will adapt to the new pattern of social relations.
Miles