The influence of self-efficacy, subjective norms, and risk perception on behavioral intentions related to the H1N1 flu pandemic: A comparison between Korea and the US

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which individualism-collectivism moderates the relative effects of agency control beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy), social norms (i.e., subjective norms), and risk perception (perceived vulnerability and perceived severity) on behavioral intention to engage in self-protection behavior in the context of the H1N1 flu pandemic. Using multistage stratified sampling, the present study sampled people from the US (n = 399) and Korea (n = 500), two countries that have been found to be prototypical of individualistic and collectivistic national cultures, respectively. Consistent with the contrast between individualism and collectivism, the results of moderated regression analyses showed that intrapersonal control beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy) and risk perception (i.e., perceived severity) had stronger effects on behavioral intention in the American sample than in the Korean sample, whereas social norms (i.e., subjective norms) had a stronger predictive power for the Korean sample than for the American sample. Overall, the findings contribute to health and risk studies by specifying which aspects of risk perceptions or beliefs are affected by national culture and how this translates into cross-national variations in health risk behavioral intention.

Antecedents of Entrepreneurial Intention among Young People: Model and Regional Evidence

“…Secondly, the influence of the social norm on the values associated with entrepreneurship (H2) has also been confirmed, both in the case of Spain and in Poland, as suggested by other authors in this and other fields [118,120]. However, this influence is not very high, and is somewhat higher in the case of Poland.…”

“…It is a proven fact that the social norm influences values [118]. It is due to the influence exercised by the social norm that individuals adopt certain values when they perceive that these values and associated behaviors are expected and approved by significant and influential agents [119,120]. Additionally, in a generational context, it is assumed that young people share values and are easily influenced by other subjects, due to the pressure of conformity [121].…”

“…On the contrary with people who have a high self-efficacy, people with low self-efficacy believe that they cannot be successful, and therefore, have less intention and less likely to make an effort, being able to consider that challenging tasks are threats that should be avoided [139]. These processes seem to be due to the fact that self-efficacy is related to levels of perceived personal competence, which in turn are linked to the perception of control and the possibility of coping with processes that assume a certain risk, as is the case of entrepreneurship [120,145]. In view of the foregoing, it is stated that: Hypothesis 6 (H6).…”

“…In the design of the items linked to motivation, we started with the studies of Fayolle and Liñán [8]. The two items related to self-efficacy are taken into account the contributions of Cho and Lee [120] and Kim and Jang [144]. Finally, the items related to the intention have been elaborated from the work of Liñán and Fayolle [61] and Fuller et al [23]…”

The Role of Sociodemographic and Psychological Variables on Risk Perception of the Flu

“…Self-efficacy was found as a predictor of the intention and practice of health behavior and risk perception (Joffe, 2003;Seyde, Taal, & Wiegman, 1990). A recent study of Cho and Lee (2015), which investigated the influence of self-efficacy and risk perception on behavioral intentions related to the A/H1N1 flu pandemic, showed that culture affected selfefficacy and risk perception. According to the authors, the way in which people perceive and respond to risks varied across nationalities and cultures.…”