Attitude ­ behavior consistency
What are the origins of attitudes?
Cognitive
Affective
Behavioral
ATTITUDE
Attitudes
* Attitudes consist of beliefs and attitudes are influenced by
values
* Beliefs
 are cognitions about the world. Subjective probabilities that an object
has a particular attribute or that an action will lead to particular
outcome. They are more specific and cognitive.
 Beliefs  facts
* Values
 are ideals, guiding principles in one's life, overarching goals that people
strive to obtain. (Maio, Olson, 1998)
 Desirable end states or behaviors that transcend specific situations,
guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and are ordered by
relative importance (Schwartz, Bilsky, 1987)
* Beliefs ­ easy to change
* Attitudes = more difficult
* Values = very difficult
ˇ Rate each thing on how important it is in your
daily life (1 = not important, 9 = extremely
important)
Sense of family
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Excitement
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Being well respected
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Warm relationship with others
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Summative model (Fishbein, 1967)
* one's attitude toward an object is a function of
belief strength and belief evaluation
where A is attitude, b(i) is each belief and e(i) is
each evaluation
This formula provided a great tool for testing hypotheses and has
become widely used. In practice, this model suggests to work with
beliefs that a person holds and with evaluations of those beliefs
A = sum b(i) x e(i)
Summative model - Applications
Smoking cigarettes will give you bad breathe
1 7
Smoking cigarettes will make your friends like you better
1 7
Smoking cigarettes will make you feel more grown up
1 7
To have bad breathe is:
Very bad bad neutral good very good
To make your friends like you better is:
Very bad bad neutral good very good
3 x (-2) = -6
5 x (2) = 8
6 x ............
...
How would you measure relevant
attitudes when you want to:
* Increase sales of BMW over Mercedes
* Open first McDonald's in Belarus
* Find out how students "feel" about marihuana in
your school
* Increase number of applications to Ps FF MU
Attitude-Behavior consistency
Attitude Behavior=
LaPiere (1934)
* He travelled extensively within America with a Chinese couple.
They visited 251 places to be served (hotels, restaurants, etc).
ˇThey were served in 250.
* Six months later, he sent out a questionnaire asking "Will you
accept members of the Chinese race as a guests in your
establishment?"
* 92% refused to accept them.
Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen, Fishbein, 1980)
* The theory says that :
behavioral intentions result from a combination of attitudes
toward a behavior and subjective norms toward that behavior.
A person's behavioral intention is a predictor of their
actual behavior. The theory only applies to mindful behaviors.
(To put the definition into simple terms: a person's voluntary
behavior is predicted by his/her attitude toward that behavior and
how he/she thinks other people would view them if they performed
the behavior)
Theory of Reasoned Action
Belief
strength
Belief
evaluation
Normative
belief
Motivation
to comply
Attitude
toward behavior
Subjective
norm
Behavioral
intention
Behavior
BI = [ bi x ei] + [ ni x ci]
ˇ Behavioral beliefs
 Quitting smoking will increase my physical endurance
(likely) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (unlikely)
* Outcome evaluation
 Increasing my physical endurance is:
(good) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (bad)
* Normative beliefs
 My partner thinks:
(I definitely should quit) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (I definitely should not quit)
* Motivation to comply
 I care what my partner thinks I should do:
(absolutely) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (not at all)
ToRA
What's missing?
What's wrong
with this
theory?
Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985)
Belief
strength
Belief
evaluation
Normative
belief
Motivation
to comply
Attitude
toward behavior
Subjective
norm
Behavioral
intention Behavior
Perceived
power
Control
belief Perceived
behavioral
control
Actual
control
BI = [ bi x ei] + [ ni x ci] + [ ci x pi]
How much control we
have over the behavior
How easy it is to perform
the behavior
Theory of Planned Behavior
* The theory of planned behavior holds that human
action is guided by three kinds of considerations:
 Beliefs about the likely outcomes of the behavior and
the evaluations of these outcomes (behavioral beliefs)
 Beliefs about the normative expectations of others and
motivation to comply with these expectations
(normative beliefs)
 Beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate
or impede performance of the behavior and the
perceived power of these factors (control beliefs).
(e.g. required skills and abilities, time, money,
cooperation with other people, etc.)
Summary
* Summative model (Fishbein, 1967)
* Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein, Ajzen, 1975)
* Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985)
Beliefs + values
(belief strengths and evaluations)
Social norms
(normative beliefs &
motivation to comply)
Perceived behavioral control
(control beliefs & perceived power)