The Relationship Between Attitude and Behaviour Flashcards
When was attitudes first used?
In relation to the theatre, where attitude was a physical posture expressing an internal state
In the early days, reflected an interest in shared nature of attitudes and their cultural/social origins
Over time, became more dispositional and social became less important
Definitions of attitudes
The way that we evaluate something - general feeling or favourable for a concept
positive or negative feeling about a person, object or issue
What is social psychology defined as?
The scientific study of attitudes - huge concept in social psychology
Who believes that attitudes and behaviour are not related?
Wicker - unlikely that attitudes will be related to overt behaviours
Who believes that attitudes and behaviour are related?
Ajzen and Fishbein - behaviour can be predicted from attitude, provided that the measure of attitude corresponds to the measure of behaviour
Evidence that attitudes and behaviour aren’t related
LaPiere - author travelled around the US with a Chinese couple, visited 251 places, treated well in all but one. Later, LaPiere wrote to the places they visited and asked if they would accept the Chinese race. of replies, 92% indicated that they would not - mismatch
How can you ensure that there is a relationship between the two?
Use appropriate measures - for example, the measure needs to correspond - for example, if measuring attitude generally, measure behaviour generally
What are the problems with LaPiere’s study?
Who responded on each occasion from the establishment - could be a different person who treated them to who responded to the letter
Norm of tolerance or politeness - saving face in the situation
Typicality effect - their prototype may have been different to the couple who actually visited, so their general attitudes guided their behaviour towards category members
Example of the importance of measurement methods
Davidson and Jaccard 1979 - 244 women, longitudinal study. questionnaire about birth control methods. Measures of general attitudes to very specific attitudes
Two years later, participants were asked if they had used birth control pills since the interview
Results: initial attitude didn’t correlate that much towards contraceptives, but the more specific the attitude was, the bigger the correlation was
Correspondence is important
What is the theory of reasoned action?
1970’s - Fishbein and Ajzen
Very influential
Believes that behaviour is predicted by intentions
Behavioural intentions are predicted by attitudes and subjective norm
How are attitudes predicted?
From behavioural beliefs and outcome evaluations - - multiplied together. These are them summed. Attitudes are predicted by the summed products of behavioural beliefs and outcome evaluations
What are behavioural beliefs?
Refers to a person’s beliefs that an action/behaviour leads to certain outcomes
eg. buying fair trade products would make me feel like I have done something good
What are outcome evaluations?
Refers to a person’s evaluations of those outcomes
eg. evaluate: benefiting people in needs
What is the mean correlation of behavioural beliefs + outcome evaluations with attitudes?
Fair trade products .61 Alcohol consumption .47 Lower carbon life .55 Eating meat free .74 Across 90 studies .49
How can you explicitly measure attitudes?
Asking people
“my attitude towards etc during the next 12 months is”
What does expectancy value framework mean?
The value that you ascribe to a consequence - subjective expected utility approach - likelihood of a choice leading to an outcome weighted by how important it is
Do people always go through the process of multiplying their beliefs and outcomes?
No, it is fairly automatic or implicit
It is only in rare cases which we become fully aware of
these processes, for example, if we are making big decisions
In every day, we may have already been through the process before so already have an attitude
Can we change attitudes?
We can identify the beliefs people have but not about how to change them - that is fine though because the theory is not a theory of behaviour change. it is meant to help explain and predict people’s intentions. however, the theory can be used as a useful framework for designing effecting behaviour change interventions
How is subjective norm defined?
A persons perception that most people who are important to him think he should or shouldn’t perform a behaviour
and a
person’s perception of the social pressures put on him to perform or not perform the behaviour in question
How is subjective norm predicted?
Normative beliefs
Motivation to comply
What are normative beliefs?
A persons belief that specific individuals or groups think he should or should not perform the behaviour
Wha is motivation to comply?
Motivation to comply with each salient referent
What is important in the theory of reasoned action?
Attitudes
Compatibility - measurement of attitude and behaviour involve the same action, target - whether specific or general
Patterns of actions are of interest - cigarette smoking, condom use
Useful for most individuals with respect to most social behaviours
What happened in 1988?
Ajzen and Fishbein fell out - the theory of reasoned action was developed to deal with purely volitional behaviour, but complications occur when we want to apply the theory to behaviours which aren’t under control
What did Ajzen develop and when?
The theory of planned behaviour, 1991
What is the theory of planned behaviour?
Believes intentions are predicted from attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. Perceived behavioural control predicts intentions and behaviour
What is perceived behavioural control?
People’s perceptions of the degree to which they are capable of, or have control over performing behaviour or the persons belief as to how easy or difficult performance of the behaviour is likely to be
external constraints - money
internal - compulsions
What predicts perceived behavioural control?
Sum of control beliefs times power
Are predictions of behaviour from intentions strong?
Attitudes, subjective norm and PBC with intentions = .71
Intentions and perceived behavioural control and behaviour = .51
correlation is not as strong
relationships between attitudes and behaviour in health domain .3 - intention behaviour gap
What are the problems with explicit measures?
Problems of social desirability biases - the more sensitive the domain, the more likelihood that motivational factors will influence others. People express views that aren’t their own to safe face
What are implicit attitudes?
Unidentified traces of past experiences that cause favourable or unfavourable feelings, thought or actions towards social objects - these evaluations have unknown origin, are automatic an influence responses, uncontrollable, people do not view them as their own attitude so don’t try to control them
