As a response to the shortcomings of traditional one-dimensional approach to attitude measurement Fishbein and Ajzen (1980, cited in Zimbargo and Leippe, 1991) produced the model the‘ Theory of Reasoned Action’ to identify the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. They believed that attitudes arise from a logical evaluation of information and that they are based in rationality. They felt that behaviour was the end result of behavioural intentions, which stemmed from perceived subjective norms concerning certain behaviours, attitudes towards certain behaviours and perception of control over circumstances. They regard social norms as a major player in determining behaviour. Social norms affect a person’s behaviour even when their attitude prompts them to intend to behave in a particular way (think back to Funt`s elevator). Therefore attitudes are viewed as an indirect contributor to actual behaviour.
Fishbein and Ajzen demonstrated that the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is neither a simple nor straightforward one. There are a variety of ideas on attitude formation, stressing different aspects and components and their influences on behaviour and many other studies and theories will be made in the quest for an accurate understanding of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. One area that aids research is the use of attitude inventories. These unlike the traditional affect measurements try to cover all the components thought to influence attitudes and behaviour.
Maloney, Ward & Braucht (1975) devised an environmental attitude inventory based on four subscales, knowledge about their environment, affects about the environment, intended behaviour (measured by “verbal commitment”) and “actual commitment” (behaviour) in relation to the environment. Their shortened scale used true or false format as this was thought to reduce response bias.
They found that members of an ecology group had higher scores than college students who had higher scores than the general public. There was a positive correlation with intended and actual behaviour. Intended behaviour had a small correlation with actual behaviour and all the subscales lacked any correlation with knowledge. In their own words “Data suggested little correlation of k with other scales” (Maloney et al, 1975).
The Caledonian Ecological Attitudes Inventory is like Maloney et als`(1975) study but is specially tailored to suit UK residents. In addition response options and scoring is standardised and each statement or question is counterbalanced to prevent a person preferring to choose a response from a certain area. Agreeing with the items in half of the inventory shows pro environment attitude and the other half disagreement shows pro environment attitude The balance of the four subsections are even to ensure all components are evenly weighted.
Yule and Knussen (1998) investigated CALECOL and found intercorrelations over all the subscales although knowledge was less significant. Different results may be because of a problem with Maloney et als original items used to measure the knowledge scale, using items the pro-environmentalists had never encountered. In 1975 in-depth environmental issues may not have been broadcast to the population. Or possibly interest in environmental problems was not the general trend at that time, meaning that knowledge would have been very poor in comparison with the present time. It will be interesting to find out if a correlation exists between knowledge and any of the other subscales in this CALECOL replicated study.
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AIM
The aim of this study is to measure ecological attitudes (using CALECOL) in relation to behaviour by measuring all four subscales, knowledge, affect, intended behaviour and actual behaviour.
HYPOTHESES
1/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the affect scale with scores on the intended behaviour scale
2/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the affect scale with those on the actual behaviour scale
3/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the actual behaviour with scores on the intended behaviour
4/ There will be no correlation between scores on knowledge with scores on any of the other subscales
METHOD
DESIGN
The design for this experiment was a correlational study. The participants task was to identify their strength feeling by responding to four subscales (variables)– knowledge, affect, intended behaviour and actual behaviour. This was then analysed for any correlations between subscales and individual differences.
PARTICIPANTS
There were seventeen participants in total comprising of one male and sixteen females. They ages were from seventeen to forty three years and all were psychology students at Glasgow Caledonian University.
APPARATUS
- Instruction sheet
- Macintosh computers.
- PSYQUEST P1.0 –Psychological Inventory Designer and Presenter (automating scoring of self report inventory through computer presentation).
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Calecol (The Caledonian Ecological Attitudes Inventory). This is made up of 56 items with 4 subscales of 14 items that are counterbalanced for scoring purposes (appendix i).
The subscales were knowledge, affect, intended behaviour and actual behaviour. The computer presented the items in random order giving the choice of strongly agree, generally agree, undecided, generally disagree and strongly disagree.
Scoring ranged from 0 denoting strongly anti-environmental to 4, strongly environmental. The total possible score can range from 0-224.
PROCEDURE
Participants responded to all Calecol inventory questions in accord with instructions from tutor and guidance from the program. The computer generated the items in a randomised fashion altering the arrangement of the responses at the same time (to reduce the chance of a habit effect forming). The computer records the answers and produces a score, both on the subscales and the total score. The participants were allowed to complete the inventory in their own time.
RESULTS
Table 1: mean scores for group
As is evident from table 1 it can be seen that the highest mean score is from affect, 39.4. Actual behaviour has a relatively low mean score with 24.06. Knowledge and intended behaviour are closer together with 35.05 and 33.9 mean scores. Figure 1 shows the mean scores in graphical format allowing affect to be instantly recognised as the subscale with the highest mean score.
Scores for individual participants are located in the raw data sheet, which can be found in appendix i.
In order to calculate any correlations Spearman’s Rank Order correlation was used. Below is the matrix showing correlations between subscales.
CORRELATION MATRIX TABLE
HYPOTHESES
The 4 hypotheses will now be examined to see if there are any correlations.
1/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the affect scale with scores on the intended behaviour scale. This was a one tailed test. Results point to there being a significant correlation at the p<0.05 level, between affect and intended behaviour.
(r = 0.82; p < 0.05).
2/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the affect scale with those on the actual behaviour scale. This was a one tailed test. Results point to there being a significant correlation between affect and actual behaviour, (r = 0.86;p<0.05)
3/ There will be a positive correlation between scores on the actual behaviour with scores on the intended behaviour. This was a one tailed test. Results point to a significant correlation between actual behaviour and intended behaviour, (r = 0.92;p<0.05)
4/ There will be no correlation between scores on knowledge with scores on any of the other subscales. This was a two tailed. Results indicate that this hypotheses was not upheld as there was a significant correlation between knowledge and on the affect scale, (r = 0.74;p<0.05)
DISCUSSION
The results support three out of the four hypotheses. The subscales knowledge, affect, intended behaviour and actual behaviour have a significant correlation, that is a change in one generates changes in another. Finding that knowledge is significant could be because the participants are University students and are likely to have a greater depth of general knowledge that the norm. On the other hand having a low knowledge score could be irrelevant to the actual behaviour. This is the conclusion of Maloney et als` study. Another consideration is maybe the hypothesis is wrong; knowledge could be significant in the ecological behaviour of an individual. Maloney et al did not find a correlation but Yule and Knussen (1998) did although to a lesser degree than the other subscales. It might be that it is not the specific knowledge across the spectrum of ecological issues that prompts to action. The items used may have had no relevance in the pro environmental attitude of the participant.
Breadth of knowledge may lack significance however having a general, superficial knowledge of the subject or a deep knowledge of a specific area might correlate. In psychology it is generally regarded that knowledge of a subject has no significance with actual behaviour however it is unlikely that one would act to preserve the environment without some knowledge however unclear to prompt to action, especially in areas where recycling involves more effort than separating the items and putting them out for collection. Although there may be a smaller correlation with the other subscales it could be that knowledge is indeed significant but results may be forthcoming only when the inventory tackles the areas the pro-environmentalist is interested in and has a greater knowledge, e.g. a person may decide to recycle because they wish to conserve earths natural resources whereas another may do so because pollution kills. Both may recycle but for different reasons and their knowledge could be in-depth in separate but related areas. Possible behaviour needs a certain amount of knowledge to motivate but knowledge in itself does not necessarily activate behaviour.
Ajzen and Fishbein concluded, from their studies, that traditional methods of attitude measurements were flawed but possibly modern attitude and behaviour measurements are also flawed. Perhaps when building the items to be used for the attitude measurement there would be a need to fit the items to particular social groups e.g. lower working class or long term unemployed may not buy environmentally friendly products as they are too expensive for a limited budget. Perhaps their contribution to recycling goes as far as reusing supermarket carriers as nappy sacks, using empty jars for home made jam, buying second hand goods, or using food scraps for humus in the garden but it is still recycling and is not included in CALECOL. Likewise a person with limited finances may have no way to get any items to a recycling point as a lot of local councils do not have collection days for recyclable goods. Their actual behaviour score would be reduced as a result of this biased slant to those that are financially able to buy environmentally friendly products.
In the CALECOL Inventory (see appendix ii) there are a few items that may be irrelevant to certain areas of the population and as a result give a distorted score. For example ‘actual behaviour’ subscale item 4 and ‘intended’ behaviour item 9 &12 mentions politics and environmental issues. Some religions actually prohibit voting for political parties and this item would affect the scoring. Transport difficulties mean taking items to be recycled is not possible for a lot of people(Item 9, ‘actual behaviour’. This Inventory is also biased towards the able bodied. Some environmentalists are disabled and unable to get out to clean up, use public transport, deliver leaflets or take items to a recycling point. This highlights the problems with measuring attitudes using inventories. The items used cannot be measured on everyone and therefore gives an unrealistic evaluation of their attitudes and the relationship to their behaviour.
Age may affect the scores as most young people live at home and their actual behaviour may largely be under the control of their parents. So they may have the knowledge, strength of feeling and intention to be ecological but lack the means e.g. they will not usually decide which products to buy for the home or whether to recycle items. Age may also be a significant factor in revealing a correlation between the subscales. It would be interesting to find out if say the 18 – 24 age group subscales scores are significantly lower than the 36 – 44 age group. The evidence from this small study was that it might be as it was mostly the older members of the class that had the highest scores. This could be because as one ages one might ponder on the consequences of ones actions more. Pollution could be directly affecting their children and parents might want to make a contribution to their offsprings future environment.
Another area that could be investigated is location. Do rural areas recycle more than towns or cities? What role does local social norms play in recycling behaviour? Measurement scales could be tailored to suit a particular class of individual, whether grouped by area, social class, disabled etc, to gain a more realistic measurement of their attitude.
As attitudes are hypothetical constructs, theories and investigations will continue to be made. Through time, no doubt, measurement scales will grow more sophisticated in their search to accurately measure attitude components and their links with actual behaviour but without “tailoring” it is unlikely that all the items in an attitude inventory will apply to all participants in equal measure.
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REFERENCES
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1982). Understanding Attitudes and Behavior, Theoretical Implications. In J. C. Brigham, L. S. Wrightsman (ED.), Contemporary Issues in Psychology (4th ED), pp127 – 137. Monterey, California, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Aijzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Cited in Zimbargo and Leippe, (1991). The Psychology of Attitude and Social Influence. United States of America, McGraw - Hill
Maloney, M.P., Ward, M.O.& Braucht, C.N. (1975). A revised scale for the measurement of ecological attitudes and knowledge. American Psychologist, 30, 787-790
Philip, G. Zimbargo, P. G., & Leippe, M. R. (1991). The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence. New York: McGraw – Hill.
Regan, D., & Fazio, R. (1982). On the Consistency between Attitudes and Behavior. In J. C. Brigham, L. S. Wrightsman (ED.), Contemporary Issues in Psychology (4th ED), pp116 – 126. Monterey, California, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Yule, F. D. & Knussen, C. L. (1998). The Caledonian Ecological Attitudes Inventory: An investigation of psychometric properties. Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian University.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX i
