Respondents included 161 students (93 men and 68 women) enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Open-ended elicitation measures were used to determine feelings and beliefs respondents most frequently associated with capital punishment. All respondents completed measures of attitudes, affective responses, and cognitive responses toward several subjects, one of which was capital punishment. Even the most frequently elicited responses were provided by a minority of respondents. Overall, both affective information and cognitive information were important in predicting attitudes toward capital punishment, and the relative importance of affective and cognitive information in predicting attitudes differed as a function of individual differences in attitude structure. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed. 21 references and 4 tables