Attitude-behavior Correlations Research Articles

Offsetting behavioral costs with personal attitudes: A slightly more complex view of the attitude-behavior relation

In this research, we propose that the notorious attitude-behavior gap—the notion that people profess attitudes without taking real actions—might also stem from ignoring the fact that manifest behavior typically involves costs (i.e., personal resources such as time, money, exertion). In two quasi-field experiments with convenience samples (N1 = 396; N2 = 252), we demonstrate that the people who performed increasingly costly behavior professed progressively stronger attitudes. Our findings suggest that the costs that obstruct behavior must be offset by attitudes before behavior can manifest itself. Thus, there is a need to stop confusing weak attitude-behavior correlations with the behavioral irrelevance of attitudes. To avoid underestimating the importance of people's attitudes concerning environmental protection, the strength of attitudes relative to the associated behavioral costs must be considered.

Psychological Make-up of Korean Green Consumerism: A Path Model Analysis

Abstract As consumers' concern for the environment has continued to increase, many firms have actively engaged in environmental marketing to achieve their objectives. However, consumers' high concerns about the environment are not always reflected in their purchasing behavior. This indicates the need for an in-depth understanding of the development of green consumption within the individual's belief system. In consideration of psychological approaches, a large body of research has examined the factors underlying ecologically conscious “green” consumer behavior and the interrelationships of these factors. However, most previous studies have concentrated on Western countries. Using a sample of Korean consumers, this study attempts to understand the basis of Korean green consumerism and find universal values that are cross-culturally important in guiding consumers' environmental attitudes and behaviors. To this end, this study relates Schwartz's 10 universal values (Schwartz 1992) to environmental behaviors in a hierarchical model of value-attitude-behavior. With reference to the value-attitude-behavior framework, the conceptual model developed for the study explains what motivations can be manifested in Korean consumers' environmental attitudes, and subsequently how the attitudes affect their green choices. Using the pattern of relationships among values that can be related to environmentalism, the first hypothesis holds that there would be particular relationships between motivational value types and environmental attitudes. Hypothesis 2 assumes that environmental attitudes predict environmental behaviors. On the basis of the claim that favorable attitudes toward the environment may be expressed in many different behaviors, the assumption is that consumers' favorable attitudes toward the environment would be linked to a variety of environmental behaviors because people with high environmental attitudes can be more interested in and knowledgeable about environmental actions. Consistent with H2, H3 hypothesizes that there would be a positive relationship between different types of environmental behavior. A total of 564 university students participated in the study. The sample included 308 men, 254 women, and two participants who did not indicate their gender. The average age of the participants was 22.5 years, with a range of 19 to 39. Regarding majors, special efforts were made to draw the participants from different departments of the university. Data were collected by a survey administered via self-completion questionnaires., which assessed the participants' value priorities, environmental attitudes, and behaviors. Path analysis conducted to test the proposed model found the overall fit to be χ2=72.01 (p=0.00), GFI=0.983, CFI= 0.982, NFI=0.970, RMR=0.070, and REMSEA=0.050. Thus, most of the fit measures indicated a good fit of the model with the data, and a hierarchical relationship from values to environmental attitudes to environmental non-purchasing behavior to environmental purchasing behavior was confirmed. An assessment of all the predicted paths by path coefficients led to several major hypothesized effects being confirmed. Out of the ten value types, universalism and power were significantly but conversely related to environmental attitudes. In line with the other studies, these findings confirm that environmental attitudes are an important factor in leading to a variety of green behaviors. Finally, significant relationships were found between environmental purchasing and non-purchasing behaviors. The path analysis supported the idea that universalism values provide a motivation for Korean consumers' greenness and indirectly promote environmental acts through favorable attitudes toward the environment. Participants with high environmental attitudes were found to actively engage in diverse forms of green consumer behavior. This research provides an opportunity to examine cross-cultural differences with respect to values leading to environmentalism, and, further, to verify previous findings. The study also examined the attitude-behavior relationship with respect to three distinct types of environmental behaviors. The different strengths of paths between green attitudes and behaviors suggest that researchers should consider the specificity of behavior explained as an effort to improve the low attitude-behavior correlation. Finally, the findings here illustrate that with increased environmental concerns among people, they come to include more such behaviors in their green portfolios.

Sociosexual attitudes and behaviors: Why two factors are better than one

Researchers have recently questioned the unidimensionality of the sociosexual orientation inventory [SOI; Simpson, J. A., & Gangestad, S. W. (1991). Individual differences in sociosexuality: evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 870–883], which measures willingness to engage in uncommitted sexual relationships. Previous research, however, has not empirically examined this issue. Thus, 2787 undergraduates completed measures of the SOI, narcissism, and hostility. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a dual-factor model of the SOI, which accounted for both behavioral (Items 1–3) and attitudinal (Items 2, 4–7) components, fit the data significantly better than a single-factor model. Although gender did not moderate the factor loadings, the sociosexual attitude-behavior correlation was stronger for women than for men. Sociosexual attitudes and behaviors were differentially related to narcissism and hostility. Researchers should consider scoring the SOI as separate attitudinal and behavioral components.

Which Behaviors Do Attitudes Predict? Meta-Analyzing the Effects of Social Pressure and Perceived Difficulty

A meta-analysis of 797 studies and 1,001 effect sizes tested a theoretical hypothesis that situational constraints, such as perceived social pressure and perceived difficulty, weaken the relationship between attitudes and behavior. This hypothesis was confirmed for attitudes toward performing behaviors and for attitudes toward issues and social groups. Meta-analytic estimates of attitude-behavior correlations served to quantify these moderating effects. The present results indicated that the mean attitude-behavior correlation was .41 when people experienced a mean level of social pressure to perform a behavior of mean difficulty. The mean correlation was .30 when people experienced social pressure 1 standard deviation above the mean to perform a behavior that was 1 standard deviation more difficult than the mean. The results suggest a need for increased attention to the “behavior” side of the attitude-behavior equation. Attitudes predict some behaviors better than others.

Attitudes and behavior in social space: Public good interventions based on shared representations and environmental influences

A sub-theory of social space was developed that predicts that attitude–behavior correlations will be reduced in public places when there are either (1) shared representations and behavioral uniformity associated with a group's interaction and social identification with that place, or (2) direct cues from the physical environment that make certain behaviors less likely to be under perceived behavior control. This distinction is critical for knowing when attitudinal or structural interventions are more likely to change different types of behavior in different spaces. The theory was applied to the problem of littering in the central quadrangle (quad) of a university. Study 1 found that attitude–behavior correlations were significantly lower on-Quad compared to off-Quad (for noncigarette littering). Attitude salience manipulations failed to change littering behavior, and there were no differences in social representations of the quad space or attitude–behavior correlations between regular and casual users. Self-monitoring was found to moderate attitude behavior-correlations off-Quad but not on-Quad. In Study 2, a structural intervention (adding ashtrays and litter bins) reduced cigarette littering by 64%, without changing attitudes towards littering. Consistent with the two-stage process model of littering behavior, pro-environmental attitudes predicted active, but not passive, littering. Results supported an environmental perspective in which the structure of the physical environment, rather than group-based social representations and attitudes, moderated the way in which littering behavior was performed.

The Effects of Analyzing Reasons for Brand Preferences: Disruption or Reinforcement?

Different streams of research offer seemingly conflicting predictions as to the effects of analyzing reasons for preferences on the attitude-behavior link. The authors apply these different theoretical accounts to a new product scenario and identify conditions under which analyzing reasons for brand preferences can increase or decrease the predictive value of reported preferences. Consistent with dual-process theories of persuasion, in Study 1 the authors find that reasons analysis increases the link between attitude and behavior when the measure of behavior closely follows attitude measurement. In contrast, and consistent with research by Wilson and colleagues (e.g., Wilson et al. 1989 ) on the disruptive effects of reasons analysis, the authors find that thinking about reasons significantly decreases the attitude–behavior correlation when the observed behavior occurs after a substantial delay. Study 2 not only replicates this finding but also suggests that the timing of the reasons task can be an important moderator of the disruption effect. Specifically, the authors draw on the literature on accountability effects to show that even when there is a delay between attitude and behavior measurement, reasons analysis leads to an increase in the attitude–behavior link, as long as reasons are analyzed after attitude measurement. Finally, in Study 3, the authors validate the account of the effects of reasons analysis by obtaining parallel findings for attitude persistence. Together, the studies offer preliminary advice to both practitioners and academics regarding the potential effects of asking consumers to think about why they like or dislike certain products.

The Effect of Respondent Characteristics on General Environmental Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

Five different environmental attitude scales were regressed on an 11-item self-reported general environmental behavior index derived from a confirmatory factor analysis. Correlations between each of the 5 attitude scales and the behavioral index were computed and a Fisher's Z-transformation was used to test for the effect of six respondent characteristics (gender, residence, education, income, age, and political orientation) on the attitude-behavior correlations. Although all of the five scales were significantly correlated with the behavioral index (p < .001), correlations for some attitude scales were highly affected by respondent characteristics. Of the 5 scales examined, the Environmental Concern (EC), New Environmental Paradigm (NEP), and Awareness of Consequences (AC) scales were associated most strongly with behavior, but the EC and NEP also were significantly affected by respondent characteristics. Implications for future studies and use of the scales are discussed.

Attitudes and the Prediction of Behavior: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature

The relationship between attitudes and behavior has been the topic of considerable debate. This article reports a meta-analysis of 88 attitude-behavior studies that reveals that attitudes significantly and substantially predict future behavior (mean r = .38; combined p <<. 000000000001). Relatively large and significant moderating effects were found for the attitudinal variables of attitude certainty, stability, accessibility, affective-cognitive consistency, and direct experience (mean q = .39). A smaller but significant moderating effect was found for self-monitoring (mean q = .29). Methodological factors associated with high attitude-behavior correlations included self-report measures of behavior (q =. 22), the use of nonstudents as subjects (q =. 17), and corresponding levels of specificity in the attitude and behavior measures (mean q = .47). The practical magnitude of attitude-behavior correlations is considered, as are the future directions of attitude-behavior research.

Attitude–Behavior Relations: A Meta-Analysis of Attitudinal Relevance and Topic

The difficulty of finding a relationship between attitudes and behavior is one of the greatest controversies in recent social science research. The purpose of this study was to determine whether attitudinal relevance substantially affects the magnitude of the correlation between attitudes and behavior and whether the effects are content-free. Using meta- analysis the authors integrated findings from 138 attitude-behavior correlations with a total sample size of 90908. The behaviors they studied ranged over 19 different categories and a variety of miscellaneous topics. The results showed a strong overall attitude- behavior relationship (r = .79) when methodological artifacts were eliminated. As predicted the higher the attitudinal relevance the stronger the relationship between attitudes and behavior. This effect held true across diverse content domains. Implications for communication theory and practice are discussed. (authors)

Self-Regulation and Consistency between Attitudes, Traits, and Behaviors

This research examined the impact of self-regulatory styles on the degree of consistency between behaviors and self-reported attitudes and traits. It was predicted that individuals who regulate their behavior in an autonomous manner would be more like{y to display behavior consistent with their self-reported attitudes and traits than individuals who regulate their behavior in accordance with external or introjected controls. In two intrinsic motivation laboratory experiments, subjects who were classified as autonomy oriented on the basis of their responses to the General Causality Orientations Scale were shown to display significantly higher attitude-behavior correlations than subjects classified as control oriented. In another experiment, autonomy-oriented subjects showed greater consistency between self-descriptions of conscientiousness and a behavioral criterion than control-oriented subjects. Together, these findings support Deci and Ryan's hypothesis that individual differences in self-regulation will influence indexes of personality integration.

Timing of Reasons Analysis and Attitude-Behavior Consistency

Having people think about reasons why they hold particular attitudes has been shown to reduce the correlation between attitudes and behaviors. Failures to replicate this phenomenon may have been due to the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations. In this study, 81 subjects were divided into three groups. As they familiarized themselves with a set of photographs of opposite-sex adults, the first group was asked to think of reasons why they found each picture attractive or unattractive. After they had rated the attractiveness of each photogTaph and had completed a 20-min. “filler” task, they were asked to refamiliarize themselves with the photographs. The behavior, time spent looking at each photograph, was recorded on videotape. A second group of subjects analyzed reasons following an initial perusal of the photographs. A control group did not analyze reasons. Mean attitude-behavior correlations between attractiveness ratings and times spent looking at pictures were .35 in the control group, .46 in the reasons-analysis-after-familiarization group, and .05 in the reasons-analysis-during-familiarization group. These results suggest that the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations may be an important limiting condition on the reasons-analysis effect.

The importance of selecting appropriate adjective pairs for measuring attitude based on the semantic differential method

The aim of this study is to verify whether a given semantic differential scale is appropriate for measuring attitudes toward four health-related behaviors: smoking cigarettes; using oral contraceptives; breast self-examination; and using dental floss. 193 undergraduate university women completed an attitudinal questionnaire concerning these behaviors and three months later the corresponding behaviors were self-reported. Internal consistency values varied from 0.49 to 0.83 and the attitude-behavior correlations fluctuated between 0.12 and 0.64. The lowest alpha value was associated with the lowest attitude-behavior correlation. The results are discussed in terms of the relevance and the semantic stability of the pair of adjectives used to assess the attitude construct.

Self-monitoring and the attitude–behavior relation.

It has been suggested that self-monitoring moderates attitude-behavior relations by influencing the perceived relevance of attitudes as guides for action. To test an alternative interpretation, 155 male and female college students responded to three questionnaires over a 6-week period before and after the 1980 presidential election. The questionnaires assessed self-monitoring tendency, attitudes and intentions with respect to voting in the election and with respect to smoking marijuana over a 3-week period, and self-reports of actual behavior. As in previous studies, low self-monitors tended to exhibit stronger attitude-behavior correlations than high self-monitors. There was, however, no difference in the predictability of intentions from attitudes, a finding which discontinued the preceived relevance interpretation of the effect of self-monitoring. Instead, the difference was located in the relation between intentions and behavior; low self-monitors exhibited significantly stronger intention-behavior correlations than did high selfmonitors. These findings supported the alternative interpretation, according to which the two types of individuals are equally aware of their attitudes' action implications; however, high self-monitors, being sensitive to situational demands, are less likely to carry out their previously formed intentions than are low selfmonitors, who are more attentive to internal cues. Research on the relationship between attitudes and behavior has undergone a marked shift of focus in recent years. Attitudes are no longer expected to predict behavior unconditionally; instead, their relation to behavior is said to be moderated by other variables. The strength of attitude-behavior relations is assumed to be contingent on a variety of factors, including the judged influence of extraneous events (Wicker, 1971), direct experience with the attitude object or with the behavior (Fazio & Zanna, 1978a; Regan & Fazio, 1977), confidence with which the attitude is held (Fazio & Zanna, 1978b), internal consistency of the attitude (Norman, 1975), heightened self-awareness (Wicklund, in press), and such individual difference variables as self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974, in press) and self-consciousness (Scheier, 1980; Scheier, Buss, & Buss, 1978).

Attitude–behavior consistency: An individual difference perspective.

Past research suggests that an attitude representing a summary of prior behaviors toward the attitude object is more predictive of subsequent behaviors than is an attitude based on nonbehavioral information. The implications of this finding for an individual difference approach to the issue of attitudebehavior consistency were examined. It was predicted that only individuals whose past behaviors have been relatively invariant (low behavioral variability) and who tend to infer their attitudes from those past behaviors (low selfmonitoring) would express attitudes that summarize past behaviors and, hence, strongly predict future behaviors. In the first session, subjects completed Snyder's self-monitoring scale. In addition, subjects' attitudes toward religion were assessed, and subjects were asked to indicate the extent to which they varied from one situation to another in how religious they were. In the second session approximately 1 month later, several measures of subjects' reports of religious behaviors since the first session were obtained. Attitude-behavior correlations were then computed within each of the four groups of subjects produced by a Low-High Self-Monitoring X Low-High Variability classification scheme. As predicted, only low self-monitors whose past religious behaviors had been relatively invariant manifested high attitude-behavior correlations across all behavioral measures. The implications of the results for the individual difference variables and for the attitude-behavior consistency controversy are discussed.

Theoretical and methodological implications of the influence of sex preferences on the fertility attitude-behavior relationship

Data was collected from a sample of 72 volunteers from the University of Colorado introductory psychology subject pool in order to explore the theoretical possibility that measures of preferred family size generate good aggregate but poor individual fertility predictions because they ignore the influence of family sex composition preferences. The average preferred (1st choice) family size of 2.80 for this sample closely matches the average expected value of 2.86 children. Longitudinal studies of fertility intentions sometimes report the proportions of respondents who have exactly the number of children they said they desired at the time of the 1st interview. The expected proportions for this sample again assuming strict adherence to the stopping rules are as follows: 66% of the respondents would have exactly the number of children they desire; 26% would miss their ideal by 1; and 8% would miss their ideal by 2 or more. The maximum correlation between most preferred family size and actual outcomes would be .78. Study results demonstrate that poor attitude-behavior correlations in fertility studies must be partially attributed to the measures of attitude used and to the probabilistic nature of the determinants of fertility behavior as well as to true attitude-behavior inconsistency. The strategy suggested for improving attitude measures is to develop measures which capture the inherent dependence of fertility decisions on probabilistic events.

Temporal instability as a moderator of the attitude–behavior relationship.

The effects of temporal instability in attitudes on the attitude-behavior relationship were examined in a study of volunteering to tutor blind children. A mailed appeal was received by 286 Israeli undergraduates who had completed a questionnaire either 3 months, 6 months, or both 3 and 6 months earlier, or not at all. Embedded in the questionnaire were attitude items on altruistic acts (including tutoring blind children) and on various controversial issues. The attitude-behavior correlation was higher over the shorter time interval (.47 vs. .13), and data from the group whose attitudes were measured twice indicated this was due to real change in individuals' attitudes. A specific attitude and its corresponding behavior correlated more strongly among those whose general set of altruistic attitudes showed high rather than low temporal stability (.47 vs. —.03), but stability of the specific attitude did not moderate this correlation. Characteristics of attitudes that might influence their stability are discussed, and it is shown that attitude stability is not a general trait.

Methodological problems of research about attitude-behavior consistency

Research about the consistency between attitudes and attituderelated behavior has a long history, perhaps starting with the classic study by Lapiere (1934) which showed that there was no relation between attitudes toward Chinese and the behavior of restaurant managers toward a Chinese couple. More recent research has emphasized a series of methodological problems which might explain why the controversy is still very much alive after more than forty years of research and debate. This trend is present in the writings of Calder and Ross (1973), Campbell (1963) Erlich (1969), Dillehay (1973) Fishbein (1967), Fishbein and Ajzen (1974, 1975), Kelman (1974), Liska (1975), McGuire (1968), Scott (1969) and Wicker (1969, 197 1). In this paper we will attempt to organise the various conceptual and methodological problems into a coherent framework. This framework will allow us to generate some interesting new perspectives for analysing sources of attitude-behavior inconsistency. The study of attitude-behavior consistency is basically the study of the relationship between two variables. Low correlation between the two variables can sometimes be attributed to choices one has to make in deciding how to measure or conceptualise each variable. In the case of the attitude-behavior consistency issue, it is apparent that much attention has been paid to the measurement of attitudes, but measurement of behavior, on the other hand, has been considered to be self-evident. Besides attributing it to decisions about how to measure each variable, one can also attribute low degree of association between variables to a failure to meet assumptions which are commonly required for a valid interpretation of various measures of association. Finally, lack of attitude behavior correlation can be attributed to intervening variables

Group Dynamics and Attitude-Behavior Relations

A model is presented in which attitudes have effects on behaviors, behaviors are compared against norms to define deviance, and deviance has a return, corrective effect on attitudes through mechanisms of social control. Social interactions link these individual processes to form a single interpersonal system within a group. It is demonstrated that in a system of this kind, an attitude-behavior correlation is a function of many different social psychological effects, and its value conceivably could be positive, zero, or even negative. Results of a preliminary empirical study using two-stage least squares to estimate system parameters show that the proposed system is viable with some modifications. In particular, empirical evidence in support of an attitude-behavior effect is found.

The Effect of Behavior Relevant Information on Attitude-Behavior Consistency

Summary This study investigated the effect of behavior relevant information on the appropriateness of the behavioral criterion employed in attitude-behavior research. The attitudes toward dental health of 32 randomly selected male college students were assessed. These attitudes were compared with the quality of dental care behavior exhibited before and after participation in a group instruction session designed to provide information relevant to the realization of high quality dental care behavior. Although attitudes toward dental health were not significantly correlated with the quality of dental care behavior prior to the instructional session, strong attitude-behavior correlations (p < .01) emerged with respect to the postinstruction data. The implications of these findings for research on attitude-behavior consistency are discussed.

Making Inferences from Attitude-Behavior Correlations

Social psychologists have made a number of inferences from the relatively, low predictability of verbal for overt behavior. Three such inferences having to do with the stability of attitudes, the measurement adequacy of verbal reports of attitudes, and the extent to which determine or influence behavioral outcomes are prominent in the attitude-behavior research literature. An explicit causal model representing the key features of these theoretical inferences is presented to illustrate the assumptions made by these inferences and the problems associated with making such inferences in bivariate situations. In order to understand the dynamics of the attitude-behavior relationship in specific substantive situations, the need to go beyond such data is emphasized, and some methods for doing so are discussed. Some empirical examples using data from the existing literature are provided to illustrate the suggested approaches. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN and behavior has long been of interest to social psychologists. This interest has taken two dominant forms: 1) an interest in the prediction of behavior from verbal attitudes, and 2) a theoretical concern with the nature of the observed relationships between verbal and actual behavioral responses. Although the two concerns are sometimes confused, they are quite distinct. Prediction is not concerned with hypothetical constructs such as underlying attitudes * The author was supported by a National Institute of General Medical Sciences Training Program in Methodology and Statistics (GMO-1526) and by post-doctoral support from Professors William H. Sewell and Robert M. Hauser during the writing of this paper. Data analyses reported in the paper were supported primarily by a grant to Professor Sewell from the National Institutes of Health (M-6275). The author wishes to thank numerous persons for making helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper, particularly Charles Susmilch, Robert M. Hauser, L. Edward Wells, and the anonymous referees for Sociometry. The author, however, bears full responsibility for the contents of the paper. Computer facilities were provided by the Madison Academic Computing Center.