The Effect of Behavior Relevant Information on Attitude-Behavior Consistency

Weigel, Russell H.; Amsterdam, James T.

doi:10.1080/00224545.1976.9923395

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…1. The correlation between attitude and behavior with regard to energy conservation found in this study replicates findings by other researchers (Schuman and Johnson, 1976;Weigel and Amsterdam, 1976;Fazio and Zanna, 1978). A significant relationship between attitude and behavior was confirmed in this study which was designed to assess the practice of energy conservation tasks as well as associated attitude dimensions.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Adolescent Energy Conservation: Dimensions of Attitude‐Behavior Consistency

Lytle

Chamberlain

1985

Home Economics Research Journal

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The purpose of this study was to analyze the nature of the relationship between energy conservation attitudes and behaviors of adolescents in the use of energy for personal and family‐related activities. Specifically, the study was designed to determine a level of attitude‐behavior consistency for each respondent and cor responding levels of selected attitudinal qualities. The association of selected demographic characteristics and attitude‐behavior consistency was also deter mined. Data were collected from 227 eleventh and twelfth grade students en rolled in both urban and rural public schools. The dependent variable was the attitude‐behavior consistency score. Independent variables included demo graphic characteristics as well as levels of attitudinal quality defined as affective, cognitive, and direct experience. The relationship existing between attitude and behavior was tested using correlational statistical analysis. Multiple regression, factorial analysis of variance, and t‐tests were used to determine significant sources of variance upon the consistency score. Energy conservation attitudes and behaviors of adolescents were found to be significantly correlated. Differ ences in the consistency of attitude and behavior were found to be significantly associated with sex and employment of adolescents. No significant differences in consistency were found to be associated with other demographic variables tested or with levels of attitudinal qualities measured.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Adolescent Energy Conservation: Dimensions of Attitude‐Behavior Consistency

Lytle

Chamberlain

1985

Home Economics Research Journal

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“…Confusion about the process of recycling was a strong predictor of non-recycling behavior. Others have shown that belief in a goal isn't enough to influence behavior; people must also have sufficient knowledge of appropriate behavior (Cook and Berrenberg, 1981;Weigel and Amsterdam, 1976). In a metaanalysis of 128 studies dealing with responsible environmental behavior Hines et al (1986-87) explored the link between knowledge and behavior.…”

Section: The Role Of Information In Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding global change: A cognitive perspective on communicating through stories

Kearney

1994

Climatic Change

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Human behavior must be changed in order to ameliorate the adverse effects of global change. However, numerous studies have shown that durable change is difficult to achieve unless people have an adequate understanding of the problem and of appropriate behavioral solutions. Creating such an understanding has not been easy; the very nature of global change makes effective communication difficult. This paper proposes that one reason information has been unsuccessful is that it is not generally structured to take advantage of the way people process information. The cognitive processes involved in information acquisition and the special problems associated with communicating about global change are discussed. This discussion is used to identify those informational characteristics that will facilitate the transfer of information about global change. Stories (also referred to as case-studies or analogies) are suggested as one structure that encapsulates these characteristics; the role of stories in information transfer is elaborated upon. Though written from the point of view of presenting information to the public so that it creates understanding and impacts behavior, the paper is also relevant for scientists who wish to effectively communicate their ideas to the media and to researchers in other disciplines. * Note that text is emphasized here because of its widespread use and relative inexpensiveness. The principles of effective information transfer, however, apply to other modes as well.

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Increasing attitude-behavior correspondence by broadening the scope of the behavioral measure.

Weigel

Newman²

1976

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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227

112

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Concerns about the adequacy of both the methodology and behavioral criteria employed in much of the past research on attitude-behavior consistency prompted this field experiment. The environmental attitudes of 44 subjects were assessed using a measure whose reliability and validity had been previously established. During the next 8 months each subject was offered opportunities to engage in a variety of distinct ecologically oriented behaviors. As hypothesized, the attitude measure exhibited only modest capacity to predict performance or nonperformance of the actions associated with each of these single behavioral criteria (mean r-.29, p < .10). However, when these single criteria were combined into a more comprehensive behavioral index intended to map out an action domain of comparable breadth to the attitude domain assessed, the correlation between scores on this index and scores on the attitude measure was much more pronounced (r= .62, p < .001). The implications of these findings for attitude-behavior research are discussed.The frequent reports of low or nonsignificant correlations between attitude measures and behavioral criteria (e.g., Wicker, 1969) clearly challenge the proposition that attitudes are precursors of action (i.e., predispositions to respond to an object in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner). It is a challenge that has provoked a variety of reactions ranging from profound disenchantment with the utility of attitudes for understanding human activity (Deutscher, 1966;Wicker, 1969) to phenomenologically oriented defenses of the attitude concept (Brandt, 1970;Kelman, 1974). Other authors have responded to the accumulated evidence of attitude-behavior inconsistency by suggesting conceptual and methodological refinements intended to increase the likelihood of correspondence between attitude and action. These refinements represent a shift in the focus of research efforts; a shift from examining whether or not attitudes are related to behavior to examining the conditions under which attitudes and behavior covary. In par-The authors are indebted to Joan R. Weigel for her extensive help in the data collection process and to Stuart W. Cook and Richard Jessor for their comments on an earlier version of this article.

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The Effect of Behavior Relevant Information on Attitude-Behavior Consistency

Cited by 11 publications

References 5 publications

Adolescent Energy Conservation: Dimensions of Attitude‐Behavior Consistency

Adolescent Energy Conservation: Dimensions of Attitude‐Behavior Consistency

Understanding global change: A cognitive perspective on communicating through stories

Increasing attitude-behavior correspondence by broadening the scope of the behavioral measure.

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