The Theory of Planned Behaviour

Question 1

define attitudes.

Answer 1

• outward forms express inner reality
• overtime, attitudes became more dispositional and the social dimension became less apparent.
• “general feeling of favourableness or unfavourableness for that concept”.

Question 2

true or false: attitudes are related to behaviours, not actions.

Answer 2

false - attitudes are unrelated or slightly related to behaviours, and closely related to actions.

Question 3

describe LaPieres study, and what did his findings suggest?

Answer 3

• author travelled US with Chinese couple, visited 251 establishments.
• later asked establishments whether they would accept Chinese guests.
• of 128 replies, 92% indicated no, even though they were treated well in all but one.
• findings suggested the typicality effect.

Question 4

state the correspondence between women attitude and behaviour towards birth control.

Answer 4

birth control - .8
birth control pills - .32
using pills during next two years - .57

Question 5

define stages of the theory of reasoned action.

Answer 5

(beliefs + outcome evaluation) = attitude, (normative beliefs + motivation to comply) = subjective norm, behavioural intention, behaviour.

Question 6

define behavioural beliefs.

Answer 6

refer to a person’s beliefs that a behaviour leads to certain outcomes.

Question 7

define outcome evaluations.

Answer 7

refer to a persons evaluations of those outcomes from the behaviour.

Question 8

how are behaviour beliefs and outcome evaluations combined?

Answer 8

each behavioural belief is multiplied by corresponding outcome evaluation score, scores are then summed.
- attitudes are predicted by the summed products of behavioural beliefs and outcome evaluations.

Question 9

why are correlations between attitude and behaviour important?

Answer 9

judge which beliefs are most important to influence behaviour in a positive way e.g quitting smoking, by looking at level of correlation

Question 10

true of false: we are unaware of reasoned processes before acting out a behaviour.

Answer 10

true - they are automatic processes

Question 11

define subjective norms.

Answer 11

a persons perception that most people important to him/her think he/she should or should not perform the behaviour in question.
or the perception of social pressures to perform, or not, the behaviour in question.

Question 12

define normative beliefs.

Answer 12

persons belief that specific individuals or groups think he/she should or should not perform the behaviour.

Question 13

motivation to comply…

Answer 13

… with each client referent.

Question 14

summarise the theory of reasoned action.

Answer 14

• importance of the nature of the ‘attitude object’
• ‘principle of compatibility… measures of attitude and behaviour involve exactly the same action, target, context, time elements, whether defined as specific or general’.

Question 15

name a weakness to the theory of reasoned action.

Answer 15

developed to deal with volitional behaviours, complications are encountered when the theory os applied to behaviours not under volitional control.

Question 16

outline the theory of planed behaviour.

Answer 16

attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control = behaviour intention = behaviour.

Question 17

define perceived behaviour control.

Answer 17

peoples perceptions of the degree to which they are capable of, or have control over performing given behaviour.

Question 18

report the multiple correlation between attitudes + subjective norms + PBC and intentions.

Answer 18

.71

Question 19

report the correlation between intentions + PBC and behaviour.

Answer 19

.51

Question 20

what is the range correlation between intention and behaviour.

Answer 20

.45 - .62

Question 21

describe the difference between explicit measures of attitudes and implicit measures.

Answer 21

explicit measures have problems with social desirability bias, the more sensitive the domain, the greater the likelihood that ‘motivational factors’ will influence responses to explicit measures, whereas implicit attitudes are inaccurately identified traces of past experience that mediate favourable or unfavourable feeling or action towards social objects.

Question 22

state neglects of affective factors.

Answer 22

• TPB is overly cognitive and rational
• some attempts to address this issue via assessment of e.g affective attitudes
• anticipated regret/ anticipated affective reactions
• impulsivity within the model structure

Question 23

what causes the intention-behaviour gap?

Answer 23

• correspondence / compatibility
• intention stability
• lack of control

Question 24

define attitude strength.

Answer 24

• tends to embody the idea ‘that some attitudes are stable, others are flexible and have few important effects’
• important to the concepts are: durability overtime, influential impact on behaviour, and resistance to persuasion attempts.

Question 25

define ambivalence.

Answer 25

’ state in which a person holds mixed feelings towards some psychological object’
‘rapidly interchangeable positive and negative feelings towards the same object or activity’
‘approach-avoidance conflict’

Question 26

we tend to be (over or under-influenced) by imminent events, we have limited …

Answer 26

over-influenced by imminent events, we have limited time horizons.

Question 27

‘choose impulsively when the consequences are at hand, but … when they are deferred’

Answer 27

… with restraint when they are deferred.

Question 28

the attendance at the health club study predicted that higher levels of ambivalence would be associated with weaker intention-behaviour relationships, was this met?

Answer 28

yes - there was a negative interaction between intention and ambivalence, implying ambivalence has a moderating effect on intention and behaviour.

Question 29

state a problem to indifference.

Answer 29

danger that people mask the fact they are indifferent with ‘hastily-fabricated affective judgements’ (act like they have an opinion when they actually do not).

Question 30

state additional factors to the TPB.

Answer 30

• moral norms
• descriptive norms
• self-identity
• anticipated affect/ regret

Question 31

additional variables should…

Answer 31

• be behaviour-specific
• be a casual factor
• improve prediction
• ‘conceptually indépendant’
• applicable to a wide range of behaviours

Question 32

out of the additional variables, which one made it into the TPB?

Answer 32

• descriptive norms

Question 33

state problems of anticipated regret / affective reactions.

Answer 33

• problems with correspondence / compatibility

- anticipated affective reactions often measured in relation to not performing the behaviour.

Question 34

explain why past behaviour is not a useful predictor of behaviour.

Answer 34

it is not a casual factor.
- repeated past behaviour may lead to ‘habit strength’ where ‘behaviour is assumed to come under the direct control of stimulus cues, bypassing intentions and perceptions of PBC’

Question 35

what recent development has been made to form the reasoned action approach?

Answer 35

• replacement of the ‘subjective norm’ with the perceived norm.
• includes a combination of injunctive norms and descriptive norms.

Question 36

state the background factors to the reason action approach.

Answer 36

• individual
• social
• information