CHAPTER 16 - Behaviors and Attitudes in Hierarchical Systems

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relationship between attitudes and behavior. When behavior has been reliably measured, and when behavior–attitude correlations are transformed from point biserial to biserial correlations, the correlations are found to be substantial. The chapter explains that the attitude behavior correlations are not always high. It presents a theory of the relationship between attitudes and behavior that attempts to explain the variation in correlation by linking behaviors to hierarchies of attitudes. It is assumed that behaviors are linked to the bottoms of attitude hierarchies, that is, to specific rather than general attitudes. According to the top down assumption of the information processing model of hierarchical attitudes, the general attitude is only indirectly linked to the behavior. Path analysis predicts that the correlation between the general attitude and a specific behavior is reduced by each intermediary attitude. If an index were formed by measuring all the behaviors attached to the bottoms of all the branches of the hierarchy, then that index would have a high correlation with the general attitude. The chapter links behavior to a hierarchy of attitudes.