Why is behaviour not always consistent with underlying attitudes?

Mansoor Mir

28th January 2004

PS2007: Social Psychology II

Why is behaviour not always consistent with underlying attitudes? (Spring 2003)

In his classic review of attitude to behaviour relations Wicker (1969) concludes that there is little or no correlation between behaviour and underlying attitudes. However, methodological problems with cited studies (such as that of LaPierre, 1934) have since cast doubt on Wicker’s conclusions. More recent work by Ajzen (1988) and Fazio (1990) has provided strong support for the existence of an attitude-behaviour relationship. The apparent absence of such a relation in earlier studies can be explained in terms of moderating variables. Aggregations across behaviours, the specificity of attitude and behaviour measurement, individual differences, and direct experience have all been shown to affect the degree of correlation between behaviour and attitudes. The accessibility, stability and strength of an attitude have also been shown to determine consistency with later behaviour.

Fishbein & Ajzen’s (1974) Multiple Act Criterion (MAC) predicts that attitude to behaviour relations are stronger if an aggregate of several specific behaviours are compared against underlying attitudes. The MAC is conceptually sound; it makes sense that multiple observations would help to control confounding variables that might affect the apparent consistency between attitudes and specific behaviours. Moreover, the prediction has been empirically tested. For example, Weigel & Newman (1976) found that ecological attitudes correlated with specific behaviours such as recycling, signing petitions and picking up littler. However, these correlations markedly increased when a comprehensive ecological behaviour index was examined.

Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) later refined their account of attitude to behaviour relations by introducing the idea of compatible measures of attitude and behaviour. They suggested that in order for attitudes and behaviour to be consistent they should be measured at identical levels of specificity with respect to target, action, context and time. For example, a measure of attitude towards a racial group and a measure of behaviour towards a single member of that group would be incompatible. This follows logically from the MAC and is consistent with classic studies such as that of LaPierre (1934). In fact most of the work cited by Wicker (1969) tends to focus on general attitudes and specific behaviours. The apparent lack of attitude and behaviour relations in Wicker’s (1969) review can therefore be explained in terms of a lack of compatibility between measures of attitude and behaviour.

Individual differences have also been shown to moderate attitude-behaviour relations. There are a whole host of possible variables that could, in theory, affect the degree of correlation. For example, it might be interesting to examine the effect of variables such as age, social background or nationality on attitude-behaviour consistency. However, a factor that has received considerable attention in attitude research is the self-monitoring personality trait (Snyder, 1974). It has been shown that high self-monitors display relatively little attitude-behaviour consistency compared to low self-monitors (Snyder & Swann, 1976). Therefore attitude-behaviour consistency is partially determined by self-monitoring. Other personal variables (such ...

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As well as personal variables situational factors have also been found to have an impact. Regan & Fazio (1977) asked participants to rate the interest level of puzzles (the attitude measure) and then observed how long each participant played with the puzzle when given no specific instructions (behaviour measure). Before the attitude measure some participants were allowed to familiarise themselves with the puzzles (direct experience condition) whilst others merely had the puzzles described to them (indirect experience condition). It was found that there was a greater attitude-behaviour correlation for participants within the direct experience condition. The same result has also been found using different attitude objects and in more ecologically valid field settings (Fazio & Zanna, 1978). There is therefore strong evidence that direct experience strengthens the attitude-behaviour relationship.

Attitude accessibility, stability and strength have also been found to affect this relationship. Fazio & Williams (1986) found that people who responded quicker when evaluating presidential candidates (attitude accessibility measure) voted more consistently with their attitudes. Similarly it has been shown that greater attitude stability (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and self-report measures of attitude strength (Fazio & Zanna, 1978) both correlate with greater attitude-behaviour consistency. However, it should be noted that all three of the above concepts are very closely related. It may be that they are all tapping a feature of attitudes that could be captured on a single dimension. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that they are all necessary consequences of direct experience. That is, as the degree of direct experience increases so does the degree of attitude accessibility (Fazio et al., 1982), stability (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and strength (Fazio & Zanna, 1978). It therefore seems that not only do these three attitudinal variables overlap but that they could potentially be subsumed by the situational variable of direct experience.

There are also further possible links between the various moderators of attitude-behaviour relations. For example, Kardes et al. (1986) suggest that the personal trait of low self-monitoring might be linked to a greater degree of attitude accessibility. In addition, there is a question as to whether the above list of factors is sufficient to explain all of the variability in attitude-behaviour consistency (Ajzen, 1991). These are clearly important issues for empirical work that seeks to isolate determinants of the attitude-behaviour relationship. If the various factors exist in a synergistic network then isolating a single variable becomes problematic. One way in which future research might tackle this is to simultaneously manipulate personal, situational and attitudinal variables whilst recording the resultant attitude-behaviour consistency. Factor analysis could then be conducted to establish how many factors are needed in order to explain all of the variability in the data. For example, if only two factors were sufficient to explain variability then this might suggest that attitudinal variables should be absorbed into situational variables.

Some consideration should also be given to the attempts to draw all of the above variables into a consistent model of how attitudes determine behaviour. Ajzen’s (1988) Theory of Planned Behaviour introduces the concepts of subjective norms and perceived behavioural control as joint determinants of behaviour alongside attitudes. Whilst the model does seem to capture personal, situational and attitudinal factors it rests on the assumption that that effortful reasoning is always implicated in attitude-behaviour relations and that unconscious motivational processes do not play an important role (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). This means that it fails to fully explain more automatic or instinctive behaviour. Fazio’s (1990) Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants of Processing Theory (MODE) provides a parsimonious and intuitive solution to this problem. The theory dictates that effortful reasoning sometimes mediates attitude-behaviour relations but only when both motivation and opportunity are present. In other cases a more spontaneous and automatic process is proposed (Fazio, 1986). As well as accounting for automatic behaviour the theory also has strong empirical support. By manipulating motivation and opportunity in a lab setting Sanbonmatsu & Fazio (1990) were able to demonstrate that these factors determine whether or not effortful reasoning mediates the effects of attitudes on behaviour.

In conclusion, it can be demonstrated that a whole host of variables moderate attitude-behaviour relations. Aggregations across behaviours, the specificity of attitude and behaviour measurement, individual differences (personal variables) and direct experience (situational variables) all have observable effects on the consistency between behaviour and underlying attitudes. Attitude accessibility, stability and strength have also been observed to have an effect but it is likely that these factors are simply consequences of direct experience. In addition the above variables may not constitute a complete list. That is, future work may expose further processes that mediate attitude-behaviour relations. Finally, the theory that best integrates all of these factors is the MODE model proposed by Fazio (1990).

References

Ajzen, I. (1988) Attitudes, personality and behaviour, Chicago: Dorsey

Ajzen, I. (1991) The theory of planned behaviour, Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179-211.

Ajzen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Fazio, R. H. (1986) How do attitudes guide behaviour?, in Sorrentino, R. M. & Higgins, E. T. (eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behaviour (pp. 204-243), New York: Guilford Press.

Fazio, R. H. (1990) Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behaviour: The MODE model as an integrative framework, in Zanna, M. P. (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 75-109), San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Fazio, R. H., Chen, J., McDonel, E. C. & Sherman, S. J. (1982) Attitude accessibility, attitude behaviour consistency and the strength of the object-evaluation association Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 339-357.

Fazio, R. H. & Williams, C. J. (1986) Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behaviour relationships: An investigation of the 1984 presidential election, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 398-408.

Fazio, R. H. & Zanna, M. P. (1978) On the predictive value of attitudes The roles of direct experience and confidence, Journal of Personality, 46, 28-243.

Fishbein, M. & Ajzen, I. (1974) Attitudes towards objects as predictors of single and multiple behavioural criteria, Psychological Review, 81, 59-74.

Fishbein, M. & Ajzen, I. (1975) Belief, attitude, intention and behaviour: An introduction to theory and research, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Kardes, F. R., Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Voss, R. T. & Fazio, R. H. (1986) Self-monitoring and attitude accessibility, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 468-474.

LaPierre, R. T. (1934) Attitudes vs. actions, Social Forces, 13, 230-237.

Regan, D. T. & Fazio, R. H. (1977) On the consistency between attitudes and behaviour: Look to the method of attitude formation, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 28-45.

Sanbonmatsu, D. M. & Fazio, R. H. (1990) The role of attitudes in memory-based decision making, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 614-622.

Snyder, M. (1974) Self-monitoring of expressive behaviour, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.

Snyder, M. & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1976) When actions reflect attitudes: The politics of impression management, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 1034-1042.

Weigel, R. H. & Newman, L. S. (1976) Increasing attitude-behaviour correspondence by broadening the scope of the behavioural measure, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 793-802.

Wicker, A. W. (1969) Attitude versus action: The relationship of verbal and overt behavioural responses to attitude objects, Journal of Social Issues, 25(4), 41-78.