The results showed that spontaneous attitude formation occurs routinely for attitudes formed by way of the central route to persuasion but not for attitudes formed by way of the peripheral route. For the latter route, spontaneous attitude formation occurred only for individuals high (vs. low) in the need to evaluate, that is, the desire to form opinions quickly for a wide variety of topics (Jarvis & Petty, 1996). Hence, consumers may form attitudes spontaneously only when it is functional for them to do so because the topic is important or because consumers value holding opinion on a wide variety of topics.