Addiction - Theory Of Planned Behaviour Flashcards
What is intention a function of?
Behavioural attitude
Behavioural attitude is a product of personal views and the individual’s attitude towards the behaviour (how desirable it seems to be)
Formed on the basis of beliefs about the consequences (I will get my life back, I will feel good)
What is the theory of planned behaviour?
It is a cognitive theory about the factors that lead to a persons decision to engage in a particular behaviour.
An individual’s decision can be directly predicted by thei intentions to engage in that behaviour
What is intention a function of?
Subjective norms
A product of social influence
The individual’s subjective awareness of social norms relating to that behaviour
The individuals own beliefs about what we think significant others feel is the right thing to do (the injunctive norm)
Perceptions about what other people are doing (the descriptive norm)
What is intention a function of?
Perceived behavioural control
Assumed to act either on the intention to behave in a particular way or directly on the behaviour itself.
The more control people believe themselves to have over the thing, the stronger their intention to perform the behaviour
An individual with higher PBC is likely to try harder and to persevere for longer.
Proposed by?
Ajzen
Changing behavioural attitude
Lower teenage marijuana use
Office of national drug control policy - lower teenage drug use.
Success linked to influence on attitudes
Tried to create a different attitude toward the effect of marijuana use,namely it is inconsistent with being autonomous and achieving aspirations
The target on attitudes may be key to success of current campaign (slater et al)
Evaluation of changing behavioural attitudes
Hard to measure the success of tagetong behavioural attitude as correlations
So cannot assume cause and effect
Campaigns like this view all teenagers as the same (individual differences)
Changing the behavioural norm
Anti drug campaigns give adolescents actual data about people engaging in risky behaviour in order to change the subjective norm
Teens who smoke usually are part of a peer group who smoke therefore might think it is the norm. However, most do not smoke therefore exposure to stats should correct the subjective norm and should form part of any effective campaign (Wilson and kolander)
So giving the truth about society should help the individual see that addictive behaviours are not the norm.
Using perceived behavioural control
Godin et al
Godin et al - looked at how well TPB could explain smoking intentions and behaviours
Data was collected using questionnaires and trained interviewers
Ps surveyed at start and six months later
Researchers found the 3 elements helped to explain intentions, whereas PBC was the most important predictor of ultimate human behaviour as predicted by the model
Concluded: prevention programmes should help smokers focus on will power required to give up and alert smokers to the effort that is required to change smoking behaviour
Criticism of theory of planned behaviour - rationality
Too rational - armitage et al
May be impossible to anticipate such strong desires in hedge future
Criticism of TPB - Ignores other factors
Asides from emotion there are other factors ignored by the TPB.
Group variables such as identification with others could play a mediating role in the relation with tobacco addiction
Motivation
Sun addiction study - white et al
Looked at sun protection intention and behaviours of young people in a high risk of sun cancer area
Over 1000 participants aged 12-20
Questionnaire assessing behavioural attitude, subjective norm and PBC.
2 weeks later, Ps reported sun protection behaviour for last fortnight
Results found that the 3 factors were significant in predicting the intention to engage in sun protection, and these intentions were significant predictors of actual sun protection behaviour
Conclusion: TPB does predict behaviours which suggests if we focus on the three predictors of behaviours then addiction can be prevented or treated
Use of the internet to prevent addiction
The internet is being increasingly used to promote health behaviour change.
Webb et al - 85 studies of such interventions and concluded that those based on a theoretical model tended to have greater success
TPB can have an important role I the development of internet prevention programmes
Evaluation of TPB - where the motivation to quit comes from is important
Klag - looked at substance abusers and found that quitting was more successful in people who had decided themselves to five up rather than people who were forced to
Evaluation of TPB - intention and expectation
Behavioural intention is a persons plans about their future behaviour
A weakness is that it ignores behavioural expectation, which refers to the likelihood of performing a particular behaviour.
A smoker may think it likely that they will have given up smoking in five years time, without having a definite plan to give up
