a theory postulating that self-reports of attitudes on rating scales depend on the content and perspective of a person’s attitude. Content refers to the evaluative responses that a person actually associates with an attitude object. Perspective refers to the range of possible evaluative responses that a person considers when rating an attitude object. A self-report of an attitude can change as a result of a change in content or perspective, that is, an actual change in the attitude or in what a person defines as an extremely positive or negative attitude. [originally proposed by U.S. psychologists Harry S. Upshaw (1926–2012) and Thomas M. Ostrom (1936–1994)]