The theory of planned behavior

Abstract A proposed theory of planned behavior, an extension of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980, Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall) theory of reasoned action, was tested in two experiments. The extended theory incorporates perceived control over behavioral achievement as a determinant of intention (Version 1) as well as behavior (Version 2). In Experiment 1, college students' attendance of class lectures was recorded over a 6-week period; in Experiment 2, the behavioral goal was getting an “A” in a course. Attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions were assessed halfway through the period of observation in the first experiment, and at two points in time in the second experiment. The results were evaluated by means of hierarchical regression analyses. As expected, the theory of planned behavior permitted more accurate prediction of intentions and goal attainment than did the theory of reasoned action. In both experiments, perceived behavioral control added significantly to the prediction of intentions. Its contribution to the prediction of behavior was significant in the second wave of Experiment 2, at which time the students' perceptions of behavioral control had become quite accurate. Contrary to expectations, there was little evidence for interactions between perceived behavioral control and the theory's other independent variables.

The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1987) is used to predict leisure intentions and behavior. College students completed a questionnaire that measured involvement, moods, attitudes, subjec...

College students completed a questionnaire that assessed general beliefs and attitudes with respect to matters of health and illness, as well as specific beliefs and attitudes concerning each of 24 health-related behaviors selected in a pilot study. In addition, the frequencies with which each of the 24 behaviors were reportedly performed were used as single-act criteria and to construct an aggregate measure of health behavior (multiple-act criterion). Consistent with previous work on the attitude-behavior relation, predictability of health behavior was contingent on measurement correspondence. Specific health behaviors were largely unrelated to general attitudes toward medical services, concern about illness, evaluations of health practices, or health locus of control; but they did correlate quite well with equally specific attitudes toward, and perceived control over, each behavior. Also consistent with the principle of correspondence, attitudes toward performing recommended health practices in general ...

Evidence is reviewed that suggests that requiring a person to complete an attitude questionnaire often causes the person to construct an attitude where none existed prior to attitude measurement. This finding is extrapolated, and it is hypothesized that requiring a person to complete a questionnaire that measures the components of Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action may cause that person to construct evaluative beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms, normative beliefs, and intentions, in a way that follows the predictions of Fishbein's (1980) theory. This hypothesis was tested using two alternative formats of a questionnaire that measured the components of the theory of reasoned action for three health-related behaviors. It was demonstrated that the format of the questionnaire used to measure the model's components affected the strength of the relationships between these components. The implications of these results are discussed with respect to both attitude research and broader theoretical issues.

Abstract Fishbein's (1967) extension of Dulany's (1967) theory of propositional control was tested in the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) game. The theory holds that a person's behavior (B) is a function of his behavioral intention (BI) which is determined by his attitude toward the act (A-act) and by his beliefs about the expectations of the other player, i.e., social normative beliefs (NBs). Two PD games differing in Cooperation Index (CI) were each played in a cooperative, a competitive, and an individualistic motivational orientation. CI and motivational orientations affected questionnaire measures of the theoretical constructs and game behavior as expected. Their influence on B was mediated by BI through A-act and NBs. BI correlated highly with B and was in turn accurately predicted from A-act and NBs in a multiple-regression equation. The relative importance of A-act and NBs in predicting BI and B varied as expected with the motivational orientation: in the cooperative condition norms were relatively more important; under competition more relative weight was placed on A-act.

Research on the relation between attitude and behavior is examined in light of the correspondence between attitudinal and behavioral entities. Such entities are defined by their target, action, context, and time elements. A review of available empirical research supports the contention that strong attitude-behavior relations dre obtained only under high correspondence between at least the target and action elements of the attitudinal and behavioral entities. This conclusion is compared with the rather pessimistic assessment of the utility of the attitude concept found in much contemporary social psychological literature.

This article addresses the centrality of the self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. Self-per- cepts of efficacy influence thought patterns, actions, and emotional arousal. In causal tests the higher the level of induced self-efficacy, the higher the perfor- mance accomplishments and the lower the emotional arousal. Different lines of research are reviewed, show- ing that the self-efficacy mechanism may have wide explanatory power. Perceived self-efficacy helps to ac- count for such diverse phenomena as changes in coping behavior produced by different modes of influence, level of physiological stress reactions, self-regulation of refractory behavior, resignation and despondency to failure experiences, self-debilitating effects of proxy control and illusory inefficaciousness, achievement strivings, growth of intrinsic interest, and career pur- suits. The influential role of perceived collective effi- cacy in social change is analyzed, as are the social con- ditions conducive to development of collective inefficacy. Psychological theorizing and research tend to cen- ter on issues concerning either acquisition of knowledge or execution of response patterns. As a result the processes governing the interrelation- ship between knowledge and action have been largely neglected (Newell, 1978). Some of the re- cent efforts to bridge this gap have been directed at the biomechanics problem—how efferent com- mands of action plans guide the production of ap- propriate response patterns (Stelmach, 1976,1978). Others have approached the matter in terms of algorithmic knowledge, which furnishes guides for executing action sequences (Greeno, 1973; Newell, 1973). ,

Both attitudes and traits have served as within-person constructs intended to permit the prediction of later behavior. Despite this similarity, research in the two domains has tended to progress in a relatively independent fashion. A number of parallels between the attitude and trait literature are noted with regard to definitions of the constructs and their utility as predictors of behavior. Parallels with respect to the identification of variables that moderate the attitude-behavior and trait-behavior relation are also discussed, as are similarities in the potential processes by which attitudes and traits guide behavior. It is concluded that the parallels are so extensive that research in each domain would benefit from an increased exchange of theory, methods, and findings.

It was hypothesized that one possible explanation of moderator effects is that they are due to different degrees of homogeneity with respect to a causal variable among different subgroups. This hypothesis was tested in a laboratory experiment in which performance was predicted from ability using motivation as the moderator. Ability was measured with a work sample and motivation was varied by assigning goals with different degrees of difficulty and specificity. It was found that ability predicted performance better in groups which were homogeneous with respect to motivation that in those which were motivationally heterogeneous. A moderated regression analysis showed that most of the differential validity was reducible to main effects, but significant interaction effects were found. One of them was caused by the fact that in one low motivation condition the variance in performance was reduced, thus decreasing the slope of the regression line.

Four studies are reported which attempted to replicate previous findings of significant interactions between ability and motivation in performance. In general, the previous findings were not strongly replicated, though there was some evidence that the effects of motivation on High Ability Ss are relatively greater than on Low Ability Ss. However, several significant motivation and ability effects were found for both Low Ability and Low Motivation Ss, respectively.

Abstract : This study examined the effect of self-efficacy, goals, and task strategies on goal choice and task performance. Self-efficacy and task strategies were manipulated through training. Ability, past performance and self-efficacy were the major predictors of goal choice. Ability, self-efficacy, goals and task strategies were all related to task performance. Self-efficacy was more strongly related to past performance than to future performance but was still a significant predictor of future performance when past performance was controlled. Self-efficacy ratings for moderate to difficult levels of performance were the best predictors of future performance. This finding was replicated when two previous goal setting studies, which had found no positive expectancy-performance relationship across goal groups, were re-analyzed. It is suggested that the concept of self-efficacy might provide an integrating mechanism between the goal setting and social learning theory approaches to task performance.

An important but relatively neglected area of consumer behavior—the pursuit of goals—is addressed. Two recent modifications of the Fishbein model are discussed, and an extension is introduced to better explain goal pursuit. Major revisions include (1) specification of three dimensions of attitude—toward success, failure, and the process of trying, (2) the incorporation of self-efficacy judgments as expectations of success and failure, and (3) refinement in the specificity of referents and their correspondence to reflect trying as the focal explanatory concept. Recency and frequency of past trying are independent variables in three models tested with weight loss data.

Gordon Allport (1954) has described attitude concept as the primary building stone in edifice of social psychology [p. 45], and extensive attitude literature in past 20 years supports this contention. Stimulated primarily by cognitive consistency theories, thousands of pages have been written recently on attitude formation and change. One possible reason for popularity of attitude concept is that social psychologists have assumed that attitudes have something to do with social behavior. Cohen (1964), in concluding chapter of his book. Attitude Change and Social Influence, states:

Abstract The Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model is designed to represent the effect of attitudes and subjective norms on behavioral intentions. The model has been used in a variety of contexts, and evidence for its validity flows largely from its generally good performance in predicting behavioral intentions. However, the manner in which these concepts are defined and operationalized appears to make it inappropriate for those seeking to distinguish between personal and normative reasons for engaging in a behavior. Additional problems were found in the hypothesized relationship between the more global normative construct and its underlying components.

In social cognitive theory human behavior is extensively motivated and regulated by the ongoing exercise of self-influence. The major self-regulative mechanism operates through three principal subfunctions. These include self-monitoring of one's behavior, its determinants, and its effects; judgment of one's behavior in relation to personal standards and environmental circumstances; and affective self-reaction. Self-regulation also encompasses the self-efficacy mechanism, which plays a central role in the exercise of personal agency by its strong impact on thought, affect, motivation, and action. The same self-regulative system is involved in moral conduct although compared to the achievement domain, in the moral domain the evaluative standards are more stable, the judgmental factors more varied and complex, and the affective self-reactions more intense. In the interactionist perspective of social cognitive theory, social factors affect the operation of the self-regulative system.

Failure to appreciate the role that aggregation plays in increasing reliability and validity and in establishing the range of generalization of findings has resulted in misunderstandings about the stability of behavior across time and situations, and in the conduct of experiments that produce results that tend to be neither generalizable nor replicable. Appropriate aggregation can reduce error variance associated with the unrepresentativeness of individual stimuli, situations, occasions, judges, items of behavior, and subjects. Inappropriate aggregation can result not only in a loss of information but also in a reduction in reliability as well as validity. Different approaches to prediction with single items of behavior are discussed, and it is concluded that single items tend to be too unreliable and too narrow in scope to measure broad dispositions such as traits. A major emphasis is that behavior is often so highly situationally specific that unless this is taken into account by procedures such as aggregation over situations and/or occasions, or by the investigation of events that are so highly ego-involving that experimental effects dominate situation-ally unique effects, results will tend to be unreplicable or ungeneralizable, no matter what their level of statistical significance.

Abstract The prediction of dishonest actions was studied in the context of the theory of planned behavior. College students completed a questionnaire that assessed attitudes, subjective norms, perceptions of behavioral control, intentions, and perceptions of moral obligations, as well as self-reports of behavior with respect to cheating on a test, shoplifting, and lying to get out of assignments. A subsample of respondents returned several months later for a second administration of the questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses showed that the theory of planned behavior predicted intentions with a high degree of accuracy, and that it was moderately successful in the prediction of actual behavior. Addition of perceived moral obligations to the prediction equation improved prediction of reported lying behavior, but did not help to account for much variance in cheating and shoplifting. Self-reports of past dishonesty were used to evaluate the sufficiency of the theory of planned behavior.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the antecedents of attitudes in the purposeful behaviour model. Study 1 demonstrated that distinct affective and moral evaluations exist towards at least some everyday behaviours. Giving blood, in particular, produced the most unambiguous evidence for distinct evaluations according to certain theoretical and empirical criteria. This behaviour was then chosen as the focal action for inquiry in study 2. A 2 (high vs. low affect) × 2 (high vs. low moral) × 2 (high vs. low involvement) experiment was conducted to examine the conditions under which affective and moral evaluations have linear additive or interaction effects on attitudes. The findings show that a person's resistance towards giving under high involvement conditions is overcome only when affective and moral pressures are both favourable. Under low involvement, avoidance is minimal no matter what the levels of affective and moral pressures. By examining the antecedents of attitude, this study complements an earlier study on attitude formation by Bagozzi (1986) and in so doing deepens the construct validity of the purposeful behaviour model of attitude.

A method Is proposed for determining the best possible fit that can be obtained by rescaling the multiplicative components of multiattribute attitude models. This optimal scaling approach is illustrated on both cross-sectional and intra-individual data. It is concluded that valid comparisons between the performance of competing multiattribute attitude models must be made between optimally-scaled versions.

Evaluations in the expectancy-value model have been construed as either moral (good/bad) or affective (pleasant/unpleasant) reactions to the consequences of an act. After pointing out that neither evaluation is suitable for representing the motivational component of attitude in some cases of interest, this paper proposes a more general reconceptualization based on subjective conditional approach/avoidance reactions. All three possibilities are then tested on two independent samples of 110 persons each through hierarchial regression procedures. Although measures of each type of evaluation achieved high levels of reliability, only the subjective conditional approach/avoidance measures were found to combine validly with beliefs to predict attitudes towards the act of giving blood. The proposed model also raises a number of research issues with respect to the antecedents of evaluations and in so doing deepens the explanatory base of theories of attitude formation and the prediction of behaviour.

Les auteurs ont reexamine les tests empiriques rapportes par Bagozzi & Burnkrant, concernant la validite convergente et nomologique des modeles d'attitudes a composants multiples ou uniques

This study examines the ability of the Theory of Planned Behavior to account for mothers' intentions to limit the frequency of their infants' sugar consumption. One group of mothers (experimental) was exposed to a dental health education program designed to promote this behavior, the other (control) group was not. Each group of mothers was interviewed twice; the intervention was delivered to mothers in the experimental group immediately after their first interview. The interviews incorporated measures of the key constructs in the Theory of Planned Behavior (attitudes to behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions). Results indicated that the addition of perceived behavioral control resulted in small but significant increments in the amount of explained variance in intentions, thereby supporting the theory. Although the change in intentions to perform the advocated behavior was not significantly greater in the experimental group than in the control group, there was a significant change in attitudes to the behavior in the experimental group but no such change in the control group. Moreover, amount of change in behavioral intentions was significantly correlated with amount of change in attitudes, but not with amount of change in subjective norms or perceived behavioral control. Analysis of behavioral beliefs indicated that the attitude change reflected a change in a specific behavioral belief that was targeted in the intervention. Further analyses focused on the role played by direct experience of the behavior and show that such experience tended to enhance the role of perceived behavioral control in intention formation, apparently because mothers who have older children have discovered that they have relatively little control over frequency of child's sugar consumption. The implication of these results for the Theory of Planned Behavior are discussed.

Replies by E. F. Alf and N. M. Abrahams and by L. G. Rorer defend the correlation-regression approach to model testing, contending that if a priori measurements are assumed to be proper psychological values and if the correct model is known, correlations can be higher for the better model. But since psychologists cannot know in advance the correct scales and models, popular correlational techniques are inappropriate for investigating psychological processes. It is necessary to separate measurement from the evaluation of a model. A further attempt is made here to clarify the relationships between different methods of analysis. Birnbaum (1973) criticized a currently popular use of correlation that confounds measurement with model testing, demonstrating that a poorer model can achieve higher correlations with the data when a priori measurements are used. Recent replies by Alf and Abrahams (1974) and by Rorer (1974) correctly contend that once the data have been properly diagnosed by other techniques, it may be possible to use regression so that the correlation coefficient is higher for the correct model. But the fundamental question should be: What are the advantages or disadvantages of correlational techniques for exploring psychological theories under conditions where the correct models and psychological values of the stimuli are unknown? Under these conditions, correlations of fit can be misleading since they depend on such factors as (a) unreliability of response, (b) experimental design (which includes variation and covariation of independent variables), (c) stimulus metric, (d) response metric, and (e) number of estimated parameters, as well as (/) the goodness of the model. When correlational analyses are reported, the journal reader has no way of knowing what the original data (and the pattern of devia

Interviews of 256 (190 black--66 white) females between 15 and 44 years of age in a public housing project revealed significantly consistent family planning attitudes. Users of birth control had significantly more consistent attitude structures than nonusers. To produce attitude change optimal persuasive appeals should emphasize: 1) birth control does work; 2) birth control does not lead to specified detrimental consequences; 3) birth control leads to specified beneficial consequences.

Etude comparative du modele d'attitude-comportement de Fishbein-Ajzen (1975) avec les modifications faites par Bentler et Speckart (1979). 236 sujets sont analyses du point de vue de leur assiduite au cours

Abstract The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen 1985, 1987) is offered as a comprehensive framework for understanding of leisure participation. Salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs, theoretically the basic determinants of behavior, were assessed with respect to five leisure activities: spending time at the beach, jogging or running, mountain climbing, boating, and biking. College students completed a questionnaire containing measures of these beliefs and of global expressions of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. One year later the participants reported how often they had performed each behavior in the preceding 12 months. Behavioral beliefs were found to partition into beliefs about affective reactions and beliefs about costs and benefits. Participation in leisure activities was influenced by these affective and instrumental beliefs, as well as by normative beliefs about the expectations of important others and by control beliefs about required resources and other f...

Two meta-analyses were conducted to Investigate the effectiveness of the Fishbein and Ajzen model in research to date. Strong overall evidence for the predictive utility of the model was found. Although numerous instances were identified in which researchers overstepped the boundary conditions initially proposed for the model, the predictive utility remained strong across conditions. However, three variables were proposed and found to moderate the effectiveness of the model. Suggested extensions to the model are discussed and general directions for future research are given.

Based on a theoretical model developed by Fishbein (1972), a questionnaire was administered to 73 female college students to test the hypotheses that (1) behavioral intention (BI) to use birth control pills is a function of (a) one's attitude toward the act (A-act) of using birth control pills and/or (b) one's normative beliefs weighted by one's motivation to comply with those perceived norms (ΣNB(Mc)); and (2) A-act of using birth control pills is a function of (or is highly correlated with) the sum of one's beliefs about the consequences of using birth control pills times the evaluation of those beliefs (ΣBiai). In support of the hypotheses, (1) the multiple correlation between the two components of the model and BI was significant (R= 335, p < .01); and (2) the correlation between XBiui and A-act was significant (r= .792, p < .01).

Research in social psychology has extensively referenced and used Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action to predict and understand motivational influences on behavior Recently Ajzen has proposed an extension of the theory by including perceptions of behavioral control as an additional predictor of intentions and behavior. The present research compared Ajzen's theory of planned behavior with the theory of reasoned action for 10 behaviors chosen to represent a range with respect to control over performing the behavior. he results indicate that inclusion of perceived behavioral control enhances the prediction of behavioral intention and behavior Consistent with the theory of planned behavior, the effects of perceived behavioral control on a target behavior are most vivid when the behavior presents some problem with respect to control.

Do intentions mediate all of the effects of attitudes on behavior? This study shows that discovery of the role of intentions depends on the statistical power of test procedures, the reliability of measures of intentions, and the nature of the processes intervening between intentions and behavior.