Belief Modalities Research Articles

Modal versus individually-derived beliefs about condom use: Measuring the cognitive underpinnings of the theory of reasoned action

Several measurement approaches for assessing the belief underpinnings of the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein and Ajmn, 1975), a cognitive model used extensively to understand the determinants of health behaviors, were compared empirically. Specifically, beliefs about condom use were examined in order to determine (a) whether one's own beliefs or a set of modal beliefs are stronger predictors of global measures of attitude toward behavior, subjective norm. and behavioral intention, and (b) whether measures of the perceived importance, accessibility, or cumulative serial sums of individuallyderived behavioral and normative beliefs yield superior predictions of their respective global constructs, as well as behavioral intention, than do the standard modal belief measures. Results suggest that although individuallyderived beliefs are marginally stronger predictors than their modal counterparts, practical considerations may outweigh the modest gain in predictive accuracy.

La Croyance en l'Alliance de la science et de la religion dans les nouveaux courants mystiques et ésotériques./ The Belief in the Alliance between Science and Religion in the New Mystical esoteric Movements

Contemporary mystical-esoteric adepts believe in a convergence of science and religion. This belief is not to subscribe to a revival of the gnosis or the occult sciences. The Other Science that they put forward generally owes nothing to legitimate science. A different perspective is offered in the mystical-esoteric nebula, which, on the polarity vulgar science/more contemporary science. This would converge with the religions, at least with their mystical and esoteric forms. The article analyses the social dynamic of the science-religion alliance, its diverse logic and the modalities of belief that its puts into play. It also compares this alliance with spiritism, the historic precedent in the nineteenth century

The theory of reasoned action of Fishbein and Ajzen: A test of Towriss's amended procedure for measuring beliefs

According to the theory of reasoned action of Fishbein & Ajzen (1975), beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviour form a causal chain, so that beliefs lead to attitudes, and attitudes in turn lead to intentions and so behaviour. Despite the undoubted influence of the model, a paper by Towriss (1984) has pointed to a discrepancy between what the model says and the way in which it is usually tested: while the model is about individuals' beliefs, subjects are normally asked about modal belief statements supplied by the experimenter. To examine whether the difference is critical, the present experiment was designed to test both approaches, by asking students about drinking milk. Forty subjects were supplied with belief statements (Fishbein & Ajzen condition) and 39 were asked to give their own (Towriss condition). The relationships between beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviour were then examined by correlation and multiple regression, and the Towriss condition was found to produce the stronger predictions for intentions and present behaviour, though not for follow‐up behaviour eight weeks later. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and empirical implications of the findings.

Salient Consequences, Cultural Values, and Childbearing Intentions1

In this study of childbearing intentions, 163 young married women were interviewed using measures derived from Fishbein's behavioral intentions model. Unlike most research testing Fishbein's theory, in which fixed alternative modal belief measures have been employed, in the present study open‐ended measures of consequence salience were used. The finding that different consequences of childbearing are salient for those who intend versus those who do not intcnd to have a child raises questions about earlier research using fixed alternative methods. In contrast with the results of earlier studies, intender/non‐intender differences in the evaluation of childbearing outcomes were also found.Statistically significant correlations between childbearing intention and religiosity, sex‐role traditionalism, and affluence values were reduced to a statistically non‐significant level when the model's attitudinal and normative predictors were controlled by partial correlation. Analyses of indirect effects indicate that religiosity and sex‐role traditionalism were largely mediated through the motivation to comply with husband's childbearing preference.