The Relationship Between Attitude and Behaviour

Question 1

When was attitudes first used?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Definitions of attitudes

Answer 2

The way that we evaluate something - general feeling or favourable for a concept
positive or negative feeling about a person, object or issue

Question 3

What is social psychology defined as?

Answer 3

The scientific study of attitudes - huge concept in social psychology

Question 4

Who believes that attitudes and behaviour are not related?

Answer 4

Wicker - unlikely that attitudes will be related to overt behaviours

Question 5

Who believes that attitudes and behaviour are related?

Answer 5

Ajzen and Fishbein - behaviour can be predicted from attitude, provided that the measure of attitude corresponds to the measure of behaviour

Question 6

Evidence that attitudes and behaviour aren’t related

Answer 6

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

Question 7

How can you ensure that there is a relationship between the two?

Answer 7

Use appropriate measures - for example, the measure needs to correspond - for example, if measuring attitude generally, measure behaviour generally

Question 8

What are the problems with LaPiere’s study?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Example of the importance of measurement methods

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What is the theory of reasoned action?

Answer 10

1970’s - Fishbein and Ajzen
Very influential
Believes that behaviour is predicted by intentions
Behavioural intentions are predicted by attitudes and subjective norm

Question 11

How are attitudes predicted?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What are behavioural beliefs?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

What are outcome evaluations?

Answer 13

Refers to a person’s evaluations of those outcomes

eg. evaluate: benefiting people in needs

Question 14

What is the mean correlation of behavioural beliefs + outcome evaluations with attitudes?

Answer 14

Fair trade products .61
Alcohol consumption .47
Lower carbon life .55
Eating meat free .74
Across 90 studies .49

Question 15

How can you explicitly measure attitudes?

Answer 15

Asking people

“my attitude towards etc during the next 12 months is”

Question 16

What does expectancy value framework mean?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Do people always go through the process of multiplying their beliefs and outcomes?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Can we change attitudes?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

How is subjective norm defined?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

How is subjective norm predicted?

Answer 20

Normative beliefs

Motivation to comply

Question 21

What are normative beliefs?

Answer 21

A persons belief that specific individuals or groups think he should or should not perform the behaviour

Question 22

Wha is motivation to comply?

Answer 22

Motivation to comply with each salient referent

Question 23

What is important in the theory of reasoned action?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What happened in 1988?

Answer 24

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

Question 25

What did Ajzen develop and when?

Answer 25

The theory of planned behaviour, 1991

Question 26

What is the theory of planned behaviour?

Answer 26

Believes intentions are predicted from attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. Perceived behavioural control predicts intentions and behaviour

Question 27

What is perceived behavioural control?

Answer 27

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

Question 28

What predicts perceived behavioural control?

Answer 28

Sum of control beliefs times power

Question 29

Are predictions of behaviour from intentions strong?

Answer 29

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

Question 30

What are the problems with explicit measures?

Answer 30

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

Question 31

What are implicit attitudes?

Answer 31

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