Historical developments regarding the attitude concept are reviewed, and set the stage for consideration of a theoretical perspective that views attitude, not as a hypothetical construct, but as evaluative knowledge. A model of attitudes as object-evaluation associations of varying strength is summarized, along with research supporting the model's contention that at least some attitudes are represented in memory and activated automatically upon the individual's encountering the attitude object. The implications of the theoretical perspective for a number of recent discussions related to the attitude concept are elaborated. Among these issues are the notion of attitudes as "constructions," the presumed malleability of automatically-activated attitudes, correspondence between implicit and explicit measures of attitude, and postulated dual or multiple attitudes.For nearly 25 years now, a particular view of attitudes has formed the underpinnings of my research program on the consequences of attitudes for attention, categorization, judgment, and behavior. It was in 1982 that my colleagues and I first proposed that attitudes can be viewed as object-evaluation associations in memory (Fazio, Chen, McDonel, & Sherman, 1982). The perspective has proven much more illuminating (and occupied us for much longer) than we had envisioned at the time. It has fostered examination of a wide variety of questions regarding attitudes, and it continues to provide a valuable perspective for considering new issues. In this article, I summarize the theoretical model and some of the research findings that support it, as well as the perspective the model provides regarding some recent discussions of attitudes as constructions, the presumed malleability of attitudes, correspondence between implicit and explicit measures of attitude, and postulated dual or multiple attitudes.