Imagine it’s your first time trying rock climbing. You’re at an indoor wall, harness strapped on, staring up at what looks like an impossibly sheer rock face. On top of that, you’ve never been that great with heights. Your instructor tells you it’s all about trust—trusting the gear, your partner, and most of all, yourself.

You start off confidently, but halfway up the wall, your foot suddenly slips. Not far, but enough to make your stomach drop and heart rate spike. You freeze. I can’t do this. I’m going to fall. Why did I even think I could rock climb?  You shout out to your instructor that you want to come back down.

Now imagine the same moment, but with different thoughts running through your head. Okay, that scared me. But I’m clipped in. I can take this slow. I can figure it out. After pausing and taking a deep breath, you look around and find a better foothold just to your left. You reach for it and keep climbing.

What changed? Your attitude to the task at hand. One mindset leads to panic and retreat, while the other leads to composure and action. Your attitude didn’t just color your experience; it dictated your behavior. 

In our daily lives, we talk about attitude in many different ways. “She’s got a really bad attitude to work,” or “What’s your attitude to climate change?” or “I’ve had enough of your attitude today!” With such broad usage in our lexicon, how can we define the concept? An attitude can be described as a fairly stable and broad evaluation of a target—a person, object, group, issue, or concept—typically positioned along a continuum from negative to positive. These evaluations serve as mental summaries, reflecting how we generally feel about or respond to a target. They are often thought to emerge from a combination of underlying beliefs, emotional experiences, and previous interactions or behaviors related to that target.

Attitude is understood as a construct comprising three interrelated components:⁴ 

Cognitive involves an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions about an object or idea. 

Affective refers to the emotional responses it evokes, such as feelings of like or dislike, comfort, or irritation. 

Behavioral captures the way these beliefs and emotions translate into action, reflecting a person’s intentions or observable responses toward the object in question. 

Together, these components illustrate how attitudes are not merely passive mental states but active forces that shape how we engage with the world. It’s well established that there exists a dynamic relationship between our attitudes and behaviors. Over the years, two main models have developed; one explains how attitudes shape behavior, and another looks at how behavior helps shape attitudes.⁵

1: Attitude → Behavior Model (Traditional/Predictive Model)

This model suggests that attitudes come first and influence our behaviors. In other words, a person’s cognitive beliefs (what they think or know about something) and affective responses (how they feel about it) together shape their behavioral tendencies. For instance, if you believe a particular charity is trustworthy (cognitive) and you feel compassion for its cause (affective), you’re more likely to donate (behavioral). Furthermore, the model suggests that if we can measure someone’s attitude accurately, we should be able to predict their future behavior, as long as the situation allows it.

2. Behavior → Attitude Model (Self-Perception Model)

In contrast to the traditional model, this perspective suggests that behavior can shape attitude. Imagine you start volunteering at a local animal shelter as a favor to a friend without strong prior feelings about the work.. Over time, your regular involvement might lead you to develop more positive beliefs and emotions toward the cause. That is, your attitude shifted in response to your actions. This model views attitude statements as types of behavior, shaped by a person’s past experiences, current environment, and expected outcomes. In this view, an attitude only predicts future behavior if it reflects how someone is already behaving, and that behavior persists.

Although these two models might seem at odds—one placing attitude before behavior, the other placing behavior before attitude—they are best viewed as complementary rather than conflicting.⁴ In reality, the relationship between attitude and behavior is dynamic and often bidirectional. In some cases, we act based on pre-existing beliefs and feelings. In others, our actions come first and shape our inner responses after the fact.

Task-attitude: A mental state of readiness or orientation toward performing a specific task, often involving expectations, focus, and preparatory strategies that influence how the task is approached and executed.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A state of discomfort following information that is inconsistent with one’s existing attitudes or beliefs.

Metamemory: A person’s awareness and understanding of their own memory processes. It includes the ability to judge how well you’ve learned something, predict how likely you are to remember it later, and monitor or control memory strategies during learning or recall.

Choice architecture: The manner in which options are presented to people, influencing their decisions, often without changing the available choices.

The history of attitude is rather like a snowball: over time, the concept has gradually grown and developed into something far broader than what it started as. What began as a relatively narrow construct based on an individual’s posture has expanded into a complex and widely applied psychological concept across disciplines. The famous psychologist Gordon Allport called it “probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology.”⁹ (Clearly, our friend Gordon was W.E.I.R.D., as he only thought the concept was useful to American social psychology.)

Yet despite its popularity, attitude has also proved difficult to define, with scholars lamenting the lack of uniformity in the way contemporary writers have conceptualized the term.³ In fact, back in the 1960s, American social scientist Donald Campbell noted 68 different definitions alone.¹⁸

During the late 19th century, the term ‘attitude’ was used to refer to an individual’s body posture and expressive motor behaviors, such as scowling or smiling.¹ If someone has a frown on their face, that indicates a hostile attitude. This interpretation of attitude can be traced back to the arts, where the term was long used to describe the posture or positioning of a figure. In fact, the word attitude originates from seventeenth-century French, where it referred specifically to the pose or stance of a subject in artistic representation. While we still use our physical bodies and facial expressions to express and interpret attitudes, our understanding of the concept and how it relates to our behaviors has expanded significantly in the last century. Yet there are still remnants of this early interpretation in our modern lexicon. When someone asks you for your opinion on or attitude toward something, they will often say “what’s your position” or “what’s your stance.” 

Herbert Spencer, an English polymath, was the first person credited with using the term ‘attitude’ in other contexts. In his book First Principles from the 1860s, Spencer emphasized the significance of a person’s mental stance during discussions and debates.²  He claimed that making correct judgments on controversial questions heavily depends on maintaining the right “attitude of mind.” In other words, Spencer believed that preserving a proper mental attitude (i.e., with openness, fairness, humility, and critical self-awareness) was essential for sound reasoning and judgment. This perspective laid the groundwork for later developments in psychology, where “attitude” evolved into a more holistic concept linking thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Not long afterwards, in the late 1800s, attitude started making an appearance in the field of psychology through the study of reaction times.⁶  Many of these studies were conducted by L. Lange, the assistant of the famous German experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. He found that individuals who mentally prepared themselves to press a telegraph key in response to a signal reacted more quickly than those who concentrated solely on detecting the signal.⁷ This state of readiness—often termed as “task-attitude” or “Aufgabe” in German—proved to be a significant factor in shaping responses, and its impact was consistently observed in experiments on perception and memory. 

By the 20th century, attitude was being studied in relation to other aspects of psychology, such as persuasion. Researchers at Yale University, particularly under the leadership of Carl Hovland during and after World War II, were tasked with understanding how to effectively use propaganda to boost military morale and public support for the war effort.¹⁶ Hovland’s group investigated how characteristics of the source (e.g., credibility), the message (e.g., emotional vs. rational appeals, one-sided vs. two-sided arguments), and the audience (e.g., intelligence, self-esteem) influenced persuasion. They also studied the medium through which messages were delivered (e.g., print vs. spoken word). Their work produced the influential “Yale model of persuasion,” which emphasized a step-by-step process of attitude change: exposure, attention, comprehension, learning, retention, and acceptance. This research shifted psychology’s focus from simply measuring attitudes to studying how and why they change.

It was also during the 20th century that the two leading models for understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between attitudes and behaviors were developed. The first model, attitude → behavior, has its roots in early work on attitudes during the 1930s–1960s, particularly the early work on attitudes by Gordon Allport.⁹ However, it was Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen’s Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) in 1975 that properly systematized the idea that attitudes (along with subjective norms and perceived control) predict behavioral intentions, which in turn predict actual behavior. 

The second, ‘behavior -> attitude,’ model is based on other theories such as Leon Festinger’s famous Theory of Cognitive Dissonance from 1957,³⁴ and Self-Perception Theory, developed by Daryl Bem a decade later.⁸ According to Bem, individuals sometimes infer their own attitudes by observing their behavior, especially when their internal attitudes are ambiguous or weak. Festinger’s work, on the other hand, explored what happens when our behaviors and attitudes are misaligned. He proposed that when two thoughts or actions conflict—such as holding an attitude that opposes one’s behavior—it creates an uncomfortable psychological tension (dissonance) that people are motivated to reduce. Since behavior is hard to undo, people often change their attitudes to align with their actions. 

Attitudes today are understood not just as evaluations, but as psychological objects that can vary in strength, structure, and function.¹⁶ A meta-cognitive approach, or how someone thinks about their own attitudes, highlights how certainty, doubt, or perceived knowledge shape the impact of an attitude.¹⁷ For example, two people might believe climate change is a serious issue, but the one who feels more certain is far more likely to take action, like voting for green policies or reducing the amount they fly. Overall, modern research explores not just what people believe, but how deeply and why those beliefs matter. 

Herbert Spencer 

English philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist best known for applying evolutionary theory to social and cultural development. A prominent figure in the 19th century, he coined the term “survival of the fittest” and was a major advocate of social Darwinism. Spencer wrote extensively on topics ranging from psychology to ethics, and his work influenced early sociology and education reform. However, Spencer’s ideas later faced criticism for promoting laissez-faire individualism and justifying inequality.

Gordon Allport

One of America’s most influential psychologists, Allport played a key role in establishing personality psychology as a distinct field. He is best known for his work on attitudes, traits, and the psychology of the individual, emphasizing the uniqueness of each person. In 1935, he offered one of the earliest and most influential definitions of attitudes, and also made significant contributions to the study of prejudice.

Daryl Bem

A social psychologist at Cornell University, Bem is known for first proposing self-perception theory in the 1960s. He also happens to be known as a proponent of parapsychology, where he published a paper offering statistical evidence for “precognition,” a phenomenon that has been deemed pseudoscience by a number of academics.³⁶

Leon Festinger 

Pioneering American social psychologist during the mid-20th century, best known for developing the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, one of the most influential theories in psychology. Festinger also made major contributions to the study of social comparison and group dynamics. His work helped shift the field of social psychology toward a focus on internal cognitive processes and remains foundational in understanding how people make sense of their beliefs and actions.

Icek Ajzen

Best known for developing the Theory of Planned Behavior and Theory of Reasoned Action in the 1980s, alongside his colleague Martin Fishbein, Ajzen has published extensively on attitude–behavior relationships, decision-making, and personality. His work has had a wide-reaching impact in fields such as health, environmental psychology, and consumer behavior, and his theories remain some of the most cited frameworks in social psychology.

Martin Fishbein

Martin Fishbein’s work focused on understanding how attitudes influence behavior, particularly in the context of health communication, public policy, and consumer decision-making. Later in his career, he played a central role in applying behavioral science to public health campaigns, especially those related to HIV/AIDS prevention.

Attitudes influence how we perceive, interpret, and respond to the world around us. They can shape our behavior, guide decision-making, and even influence our ability to remember information. 

Attitudes are useful (sometimes)

Without attitudes, we would find it a lot harder to navigate the world around us. Our attitudes help us to determine—sometimes quickly and efficiently—which behaviors to engage in, who to approach or avoid, and even what product we should buy.²⁸ For example, if you know you have a strong, positive attitude towards sustainably sourced or fair trade products, you can quickly narrow down the shops you’ll visit. Likewise, if you hold strong views about the right to asylum, you would avoid making friends with people who believed the opposite. Our attitudes can either be tangential (like which flavor of ice cream we prefer) or an important part of our self-concept (like religion or politics).²⁹ 

But attitudes don’t always perfectly predict what we do. There are several aspects of attitudes that determine how well they influence our behavior. The stronger and more stable the attitude, for example, the more likely it is that it will predict someone’s action. Similarly, when an attitude is ‘accessible’ to a person, it’s more useful as a predictor of behavior. In other words, if we’re not aware of an attitude we hold (such as an unconscious bias), it’s less likely to predict our actions than an attitude we’re well aware of.²⁹ 

Attitudes also need to be specific in order to be a strong predictor of behavior. One study looked at general attitudes toward birth control and found a weak correlation between how they felt about it and whether they were likely to use it. However, when they measured more specific attitudes towards a particular type of birth control—in this case, oral contraceptive pills—they found it had much greater predictive power.³⁰ The lowest predictor of behavior was simply ‘attitude toward birth control,’ while the highest predictor of behavior was ‘attitude toward using birth control pills for the next two years.’ This correlation worked for both positive and negative attitudes. 

Memory

Social psychologists have long believed that people tend to remember information that supports their existing attitudes because they want to protect those attitudes from being challenged. Yet when the evidence across many decades is considered altogether, this effect is actually rather weak and inconsistent.³¹ In fact, research by psychologist Alice Eagly and her colleagues at Northwestern University suggests that we may better remember information that goes against our beliefs.³³ 

Defending an attitude doesn’t mean ignoring information that challenges it. We often look at information we disagree with, thinking about it carefully and remembering it well, even if we don’t like it or aren’t convinced by it. When we are motivated to, and have the mental energy, we engage with opposing views more deeply in order to defend our own attitudes. In this way, our attitudes can have an impact on what we remember. 

Our attitude toward remembering things also influences how well we remember information—a concept known as metamemory.³² Psychologists Jacob Provost, Hajime Otani, and Andrew Franks looked at metamemory among college students in the United States. As modern technology now gives us instant access to limitless amounts of information, they believe that students may believe that memorizing things is no longer a necessary skill. Therefore, they wanted to know how students’ attitude to the importance of memorization affected their performance on memory tasks and their ability to judge their own memory. 

Over one hundred participants completed the ‘Importance of Remembering’ questionnaire to measure attitude toward memory and took part in recall tests using words and pictures. Contrary to what you might think, the results showed no strong link between valuing memory and memory performance. In fact, students who said remembering was important to them were slightly worse at predicting how well they’d remember. The findings suggest that caring about memory doesn’t necessarily improve it, highlighting a disconnect between attitude and actual ability. 

Smarter brains 

Young children are often told that with the right attitude, they can do anything they put their minds to. Often, we just say this to build confidence and encourage them to learn and explore. But what if this common saying was actually true and grounded in scientific evidence? 

Research suggests that having a positive attitude makes our brain work better.¹⁵ A team of researchers from Stanford University, led by cognitive neuroscientist Lang Chen, conducted a study to find out how a child’s attitude to learning impacts their performance. More specifically, they wanted to know if starting out with the expectation of enjoying and excelling at math can help with mastering arithmetic.. In the study, the researchers analyzed the math skills and attitudes of 240 kids aged seven to ten, and put 47 of them in an MRI scanner while they completed various arithmetic tasks. 

The results showed that a child’s positive attitude can have the same impact on their math ability as IQ. As anticipated, children who performed well in math tended to enjoy the subject more. Conversely, those who disliked math generally performed poorly. However, the brain scans uncovered a more intriguing insight: the hippocampus—a region of the brain associated with memory and learning—was notably more active in children who had a positive attitude toward math.

This indicates that children’s enjoyment of a subject isn't solely based on how well they perform in it. Rather, having a favorable attitude toward a subject may actually enhance how effectively their brain functions while learning it. And if a child performs well in a subject, they’re more likely to have a positive attitude towards it! 

Theories of attitude and behavior have been subject to debate and controversy for over a century—unsurprisingly, given the vastness and complexity of the topic.

Can an attitude exist without behavior?

One of the most enduring controversies in the history of attitude theory was sparked by Gordon Allport’s definition in 1935. Allport famously described an attitude as a “mental and neural state of readiness” that shapes how we respond to the world around us.⁹ His definition suggested that attitudes don't just exist in the mind, but also influence our behavior. That sounds reasonable, and later theories and studies support this hypothesis. But Allport’s definition introduced a major problem: what if someone holds an attitude, but their behavior doesn’t reflect it, or they don’t act on it? Does that mean the attitude doesn’t exist?

This became a central issue in the late 1960s and 1970s, when social psychologists like Allan Wicker reviewed evidence showing that people’s reported attitudes often failed to predict their actions.²² Around the same time, Daryl Bem argued that maybe attitudes don’t cause behavior at all. Instead, he proposed that we just infer attitudes from observing our own actions, especially when we don’t have a strong internal opinion to begin with.

The debate caused a shift. Scholars began questioning whether behavioral consistency should be part of the definition. If we define an attitude by its observable effects on behavior, we risk a circular argument: if a person’s behavior contradicts our expectations, we might wrongly conclude they have no attitude at all.²⁴ One classic study that clearly demonstrates this disconnect between attitude and action was conducted by psychologist Richard LaPierre in 1934. 

For two years, LaPierre traveled the United States with a Chinese-born couple; at the time, anti-Chinese sentiment was high due to economic anxieties and racial prejudice.²⁷ During their travels, the trio visited 66 hotels and 184 restaurants and were only refused service at one establishment. LaPierre then waited six months and returned to the hotels and restaurants they had frequented and asked them, “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests at your establishment?” He received responses from 81 restaurants and 47 hotels; of these, 92% of restaurants and 91% of hotels responded with “no.” The remainder said “uncertain,” while only one establishment said “yes.” Quite clearly, there was a disconnect between the attitudes of the hoteliers and restaurateurs and their behaviors. 

Researchers now agree that attitude definitions should be open-ended, allowing for the fact that many other factors (like context, motivation, or social pressure) influence whether an attitude is expressed through behavior.²³ 

Automatic vs. deliberate attitudes 

Have you ever been confronted with a new situation or problem and found you held an attitude you didn’t know you had? Like suddenly being sceptical of AI because you’ve been asked to ride in a self-driving car, or realizing that you’re a true omnivore because your friends want to eat at a vegan restaurant? 

There’s a long-standing tension between theories that view attitudes as stable, deliberate evaluations and those that emphasize their automatic, unconscious nature. Traditional models often treated attitudes as thoughtful judgments that were formed through reasoned analysis and retained over time. That is, we take time to think about how we feel about a topic and remain committed to that attitude. 

But over the past few decades, this view has been increasingly challenged by research showing that attitudes can also emerge spontaneously and exist outside of conscious awareness. Anthony Greenwald, a social psychologist from the United States, had quite a shock when he learnt that he held an unconscious, or implicit, preference for White faces over Black ones.²⁶ Greenwald discovered this through the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a tool he developed with his colleagues Debbie McGhee and Jordan Schwartz in 1998.²⁵  This survey is effective in uncovering unconscious attitudes, beliefs, and biases because it assesses automatic associations which are less susceptible to conscious manipulation or the desire to provide more socially acceptable answers. Since its launch, the IAT has been taken by tens of millions of people globally, generating a vast pool of data on unconscious associations related to race, age, gender, politics, and beyond.²⁶

It’s all about the individual

Classic attitude theories have often come under scrutiny for paying too little attention to the social context in which attitudes form and function.¹⁹ That is, they only see attitudes as belonging to an isolated individual who simply responds to their external environment. Because of this narrow focus, these theories struggle to explain how attitudes are shared within communities, how they relate to broader identities, or how they serve to reinforce or challenge social structures.²⁰ For example, the cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism can influence people’s attitudes toward their children leaving home. In individualist cultures, families may be more likely to encourage their children to fly the nest when they reach adulthood, while in collectivist cultures, people may believe that everyone should live under one roof. 

Some well-established theories do attempt to put the social back into attitudes. Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Reasoned Action, for example, considers how social norms influence attitudes. However, some attitude ‘purists’ have argued that the concept ‘attitude’ is incapable of incorporating the social to any significant degree.²⁰ Instead, they believe that social psychology needs a whole new set of conceptual tools to understand attitudes in their social context. 

One alternative is social representations. These are the shared beliefs, values, symbols, and practices that help people make sense of the world. Developed by French social psychologist Serge Moscovici in the 1960s, the theory of social representations explores how collective understandings shape the way individuals think, feel, and act in everyday life.²¹ So whereas attitudes are seen as the personal property of an individual, social representations are collective and enduring over time.

Attitude and identity formation

Take a moment to think about your attitude toward an important topic in society, like climate change, migration, or social justice. How much of that attitude shapes who you are? Do you share these beliefs with those around you? Do you recycle, sign petitions, or take part in mass demonstrations? Perhaps you even label yourself as an activist, depending on how strongly you feel about the cause. 

Research shows that our attitudes can come from identities that feel important to us.¹¹ At the same time, attitudes might also play a role in shaping those identities. Studies find a strong link between how people feel about a certain attitude or behavior and whether they see it as part of who they are.¹²

Psychologists Louise Randers and John Thøgersen sought to uncover the mechanisms behind the attitude-to-identity process in the context of pro-environmental actions like reducing meat consumption.³⁵ The authors hypothesized that when people change their behavior, they don’t immediately see it as part of who they are. But if the behavior matches the kind of person they want to be, it can strengthen their positive feelings and beliefs about that behavior. Over time, as the behavior is repeated, these positive attitudes can start to feel more personal, eventually becoming part of the person’s identity. 

In their study, Randers and Thøgersen conducted a longitudinal field experiment with 605 Danish students (9th and 10th graders) in boarding schools. The students at each school were divided into two groups: both groups experienced two four-week phases during which the choice architecture around vegetarian meals was manipulated. In one group, vegetarian meals were made the default option in the first four weeks, and then became optional. In the other group, the order was reversed—vegetarian meals were optional first, and then became the default in the second half.

During the course of the experiment, the students were surveyed three times (at the start, after four weeks, and after eight weeks) about their eating habits, attitudes toward reducing meat, and various identity markers (e.g., vegetarian identity, flexitarian identity, environmental self-identity, and healthy-eater identity).

The researchers found that those who ate more vegetarian meals overall developed stronger vegetarian and flexitarian identities, but only when their attitude toward eating less meat also improved. That is, attitude acted as a bridge between behavior and identity. This supports the idea that doing something repeatedly can shape how you feel about it, and eventually, how you see yourself.

The effect of moving from behavior → attitude → identity was most pronounced in the first four weeks of the study, especially for those who began in the default-vegetarian group. In other words, being forced to eat vegetarian food strengthened the development of a vegetarian identity. Over time, behaviors continued to influence identity, but attitudes seemed to matter less in later phases. This suggests that attitude change is most important early on in the identity-formation process.

Attitude, therefore, is a key ingredient in ensuring that behavior change becomes a part of someone’s identity. 

Attitude toward AI

AI: Some people love it, others hate it. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our daily lives, it’s important we understand what shapes our attitudes and our desire to use AI. Using a custom-built scale called ATTARI-12 (Attitudes Toward Artificial Intelligence), and other psychological tests, psychologist Jan-Phillipp Stein and his colleagues in Germany explored how fundamental personality traits influence how people perceive AI.¹⁰

The study involved three experiments. In the first two trials, the researchers used the ATTARI-12 scale to measure general attitudes toward AI with U.S. and German participants. Participants responded to a set of newly created items designed to capture attitudes across three classic dimensions: cognitive (thoughts and beliefs about AI), affective (emotions toward AI), and behavioral (intentions or actions related to AI).

In the third experiment, involving 298 U.S.-based adults, they examined how personality traits predict AI attitudes. Participants completed questionnaires measuring the Big Five traits, Dark Triad traits, and conspiracy mentality. 

The researchers found that agreeableness—a trait linked to trust, cooperation, and optimism—was the most consistent predictor of positive attitudes toward AI. People scoring higher on agreeableness were more inclined to see AI as beneficial and less threatening. This is possibly because they tend to assume good intentions in others, including institutions and technologies. On the other hand, individuals with a strong conspiracy mentality, characterized by deep skepticism and distrust of authority, were significantly more likely to view AI negatively. Rather than seeing it as a tool for progress, they view it as something potentially deceptive or dangerous.

Interestingly, no significant associations were found with the other Big Five traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism—or with the Dark Triad traits of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism. This suggests that attitudes toward AI are less about personality extremes and more about general social trust and worldview.

As AI continues to evolve, understanding the psychological roots of our attitudes towards it could help shape not only how we design these technologies but also how we embed them within society.

Intention-Action Gap

The Intention-Action Gap is that puzzling space between what we intend to do and what we actually do. From skipping workouts to forgetting climate pledges, knowing what’s right isn’t always enough to follow through. In this article, we explore why good intentions often fall short, touching on factors like habit, willpower, and environmental cues, and offer insights from behavioral science to help bridge the gap. 

Community Attitudes and the Future of Housing Innovation: What Planners, Developers, and Homeowners Think

In this article, we delve into how community attitudes shape the success—or failure—of innovative housing solutions. We explore the psychological and social factors behind public resistance to change, showing that even well-designed policies can falter without community trust and inclusive engagement. By understanding local mindsets, developers and policymakers can better align innovation with the values and concerns of the people it’s meant to serve.

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