Response to Smith's Comments.

This article presents response of the author to the comments of psychologist M. Brewster Smith to the article of the author published in the fall 1953 issue of the journal "The Quarterly," concerning methodological distinction between opinions and attitudes. Smith sets forth the basis for his comments in his third and fourth paragraphs. Having found much of merit in the author's paper, he feels, on second thought that it may be just a piece of special pleading, so he comments "closer inspection leads one to suspect, however, that Wiebe is actually relegating attitudes to the realm of the trivial and academic, serious and practical people should, if they follow his analysis, devote themselves to the study of opinion, where to be sure, more exacting criteria of validation have to be met, but the pay-off in predictive power seems proportionately greater." Having stated what he suspects, Smith continues, "it is my contention, and the reason for this commentary, that this aspect of Wiebe's position, which I would regard as unfortunate, is a consequence of unacceptable starting points in his chain of reasoning."