Smoking Intentions in Adolescents

Abstract

The current study examined the role of level of direct experience in the Ajzen and Fishbein model of behavioral intention prediction. Previous research has demonstrated an increase in attitude-behavior consistency for subjects with greater direct experience with the attitude object. The present findings show that the weight of the attitude component in predicting behavioral intentions increased under levels of greater direct experience. This suggests that direct experience increases attitude-behavior consistency because attitudes based on direct experience are more accessible and thus are used more in judgments of intentions and behavior. This contradicts the Fishbein and Ajzen (1980) proposal that attitude-behavior consistency increases with direct experience simply because those attitudes are more stable. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.