Do Intentions Really Predict Behavior? Self-Generated Validity Effects in Survey Research

Abstract

Studies of the relationship between purchase intentions and purchase behavior have ignored the possibility that the very act of measurement may inflate the association between intentions and behavior, a phenomenon called “self-generated validity.” In this research, the authors develop a latent model of the reactive effects of measurement that is applicable to intentions, attitude, or satisfaction data, and they show that this model can be estimated with a two-stage procedure. In the first stage, the authors use data from surveyed consumers to predict the presurvey latent purchase intentions of both surveyed and nonsurveyed consumers. In the second stage, they compare the strength of the association between the presurvey latent intentions and the postsurvey behavior across both groups. The authors find large and reliable self-generated validity effects across three diverse large-scale field studies. On average, the correlation between latent intentions and purchase behavior is 58% greater among surveyed consumers than it is among similar nonsurveyed consumers. One study also shows that the reactive effect of the measurement of purchase intentions is entirely mediated by self-generated validity and not by social norms, intention modification, or other measurement effects that are independent of presurvey latent intentions.

A Motivational Account of the Question-Behavior Effect

“…The question of how responding to an intention question alters downstream brand choice behavior has not been addressed in prior research; empirical studies documenting the validity of existing explanations for the question-behavior effect focus only on initial, rather than subsequent, brand choices. Chandon et al (2004) suggest that question-behavior effects were unlikely to affect purchases beyond the initial purchase and anticipate only a carryover of the initial purchase to a subsequent purchase. In contrast, if the question-behavior effect reflects the motivational nature of intentions and their associated cognitive features, the influence of responding to an intention question is not likely to be limited to the initial choice situation.…”

“…The occurrence of this effect also has been investigated in both laboratory (Fitzsimons and Williams 2000;Levav and Fitzsimons 2006) and field Reinartz 2004, 2005;Greenwald et al 1987;Obermiller and Spangenberg 2000) settings. It holds in a wide variety of situations, including socially desirable (e.g., recycling) and undesirable (e.g., cheating) behaviors, and for purchases in various product categories, both durable and nondurable (Chandon et al 2004;Morwitz et al 1993).The three processes most frequently shown empirically to contribute to the occurrence of the question-behavior effect are (1) attitude accessibility (Morwitz and Fitzsimons 2004), (2) cognitive dissonance (Spangenberg et al 2003), and (3) response fluency (Janiszewski and Chandon 2007). The attitude accessibility account holds that answering intention questions makes underlying attitudes toward the target behavior more accessible, which results in a change in the target behavior in line with the valence of the attitude that became more accessible (Fitzsimons and Moore 2008;Morwitz and Fitzsimons 2004).…”

The question–behavior effect: Genuine effect or spurious phenomenon? A systematic review of randomized controlled trials with meta-analyses.

“…In a similar way, measurement can also form attitudes towards the behavior itself and/or make specific aspects of performing a behavior more accessible, thereby fostering performance (Morwitz & Fitzsimons, 2004). It is possible that the mere fact of being measured influences the formation of judgments and/or accessibility of these for respondents (Chandon, Morwitz, & Reinartz, 2005). Research comparing QBEs for different theoretical measures and/or different constructs has been published in recent years (Conner, Godin, Norman, & Sheeran, 2011;Godin, et al, 2008) and it is likely that these comparative trials will enhance our understanding of if, how and when measurement changes behavior.…”

Customer perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty: the role of willingness to share information

“…Companies are increasingly interested in observing customer loyalty behavior rather than loyalty intentions (Kumar, Dalla Pozza, and Ganesh 2013) because the former can be directly linked to revenues and profitability (Chandon, Morwitz, and Reinartz 2005;Keiningham et al 2007). Companies have used several different measures of behavioral loyalty, including retention, lifetime duration, usage, and cross buying (e.g., Bolton and Lemon 1999;Mittal and Kamakura 2001;Seiders et al 2005).…”