Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Attitudes and behavior: The attitude-behavior gap in psychology arises from inconsistencies between expressed attitudes and actual behavior. Since attitudes are influenced by external factors, social context and individual differences, behavior cannot be reliably predicted from them. See also Attitudes, Beliefs, Behavior, Social behavior._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Psychological Theories on Attitudes and Behavior - Dictionary of Arguments
Haslam I 31 Attitudes and behavior/psychological theories: are attitudes and action related? LaPiere’s 1934 study(1) was widely interpreted as showing that attitudes do not always predict behavior. LaPiere found a strong divergence in the rejection of strangers depending on whether he asked hotels for rooms in writing or spoke in person at hotels accompanied by Chinese. Alan Wicker (1969)(2) reviewed 42 experimental studies and found that the average correlation between attitudes and behaviour was only very low (r ≈ .15). On this basis, he concluded that ‘taken as a whole, these studies suggest that it is considerably more likely that attitudes will be unrelated or only slightly related to overt behaviours than that attitudes will be closely related to actions’ (1969(2): 65). At the same time, however, other researchers maintained that attitudes did predict behaviour and sought to understand the weak relations identified in the literature. Some researchers highlighted methodological issues related to the measurement of attitudes and behaviour. More specifically, researchers argued that there was no simple attitude–behaviour relationship and that in order to predict behaviour accurately it is necessary to take other variables into account. The most dominant of these ‘other variables’ approaches are the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975(3)) and the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)(4). According to both these theories, the most immediate determinant of behaviour is a person’s intention to engage in that behaviour. Intention, in turn, is determined by attitudes (i.e., the person’s evaluation of the target behaviour), subjective norms (i.e., the person’s perception that others would approve of the behaviour), and, in the theory of planned behaviour, Haslam I 32 perceived behavioural control (i.e., the person’s perception that the behaviour is under his or her control). See meta-analyses by Albarracin et al., 2001(5); Armitage and Conner, 2001(6); Hagger et al., 2002(7)). Attitudes correlate well with intentions (the average correlation, r, ranges between .45 and .60). The same is true for correlations between subjective norms and intentions (.34 < r < .42), and between perceived behavioural control and intentions (.35 < r < .46). Indeed, overall, in combination, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control turn out to be very good predictors of intentions (.63 < r < .71). Furthermore, Sheeran (2002)(8) observes that intentions are themselves good predictors of behaviour (average r = .53). Scheme: Attitude/Subjective norm/Perceived behavioral control > Intention > Behavior (With an additional direct influence of perceived behavioral control on behavior). Haslam 33 VsLaPiere: LaPiere’s study (>Attitudes and behavior/LaPiere) was criticized for several reasons: First, there is the issue of the six-month interval between the two assessment points. Practically, we have no way of knowing whether the same individual responded to both the face-to-face request for service and the questionnaire request. (Schwarz 1978)(9). Other researchers have argued that the two measures of ‘attitude’ that LaPiere administered did not actually address the same attitude object. In particular, Ajzen and colleagues (1970)(10) note that a different result might have been obtained if the verbal attitude measure more accurately reflected the behaviour of interest. Haslam I 34 People who hold negative attitudes towards particular groups may be reluctant to express these attitudes in their public behaviour because they also adhere to widely held norms of tolerance or politeness. Haslam I 35 VsLaPiere: LaPiere (1934)(1) assessed behavior and then attitudes rather than assessing attitudes and the behavior. Had LaPiere been interested in testing whether attitudes predict behaviour, then this would constitute a serious limitation to his work. Haslam I 36 VsLaPiere: LaPiere believed that one could only truly assess attitudes by looking at individuals’ behaviour because verbal and behavioural responses to an attitude object arise from a single ‘acquired behavioural disposition’ (Campbell, 1963(11): 97). In these terms, attitudes and behaviour are seen to be formally rather than causally related – that is, they are related because they are reflections of the same underlying state, not because one leads to the other. Contemporary social psychologists tend to conceptualize attitudes as evaluative dispositions (e.g., Eagly and Chaiken, 1993)(12), and this conceptualization has driven, and continues to drive, the way in which attitudes are measured. >Attitudes/psychological theories. 1. LaPiere, R.T. (1934) ‘Attitudes versus actions’, Social Forces, 13: 230–7. 2. Wicker, A.W. (1969) ‘Attitudes versus actions: The relationship of verbal and overt behavioural responses to attitude objects’, Journal of Social Issues, 25: 41–78. 3. Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (1975) Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behaviour: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. 4. Ajzen, I. (1991) ‘The theory of planned behaviour’, Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 50: 179–211. 5. Albarracin, D., Johnson, B.T., Fishbein, M. and Muellerleile, P.A. (2001) ‘Theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour as models of condom use: A meta-analysis’, Psychological Bulletin, 127: 142–61. 6. Armitage, C.J. and Conner, M. (2001) ‘Efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analytic review’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 40: 471–99. 7. Hagger, M.S., Chatzisarantis, N.L.D. and Biddle, S.J.H. (2002) ‘A meta-analytic review of the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour in physical activity: Predictive validity and the contribution of additional variables’, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 24: 3–32. 8. Sheeran, P. (2002) ‘Intention–behaviour relations: A conceptual and empirical review’, European Review of Social Psychology, 12: 1–36. 9. Schwartz, S. (1978) ‘Temporal stability as a moderator of the attitude–behaviour relationship’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36: 715–24. 10. Ajzen, I., Darroch, R.K., Fishbein, M. and Hornik, J.A. (1970) ‘Looking backward revisited: A reply to Deutscher’, The American Sociologist, 5: 267–73. 11. Campbell, D.T. (1963) ‘Social attitudes and other acquired behavioural dispositions’, in S. Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science, Vol. 6. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 94–172. 12. Eagly, A.H. and Chaiken, S. (1993) The Psychology of Attitudes. Belmont, CA: Thomson. Joanne R. Smith and Deborah J. Terry, “Attitudes and Behavior. Revisiting LaPiere’s hospitality study”, in: Joanne R. Smith and S. Alexander Haslam (eds.) 2017. Social Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies. London: Sage Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Psychological Theories Haslam I S. Alexander Haslam Joanne R. Smith Social Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies London 2017 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-20