A meta-analysis (k of conditions = 128; N = 4,598) examined the influence of factors present at the time an attitude is formed on the degree to which this attitude guides future behavior. The findings indicated that attitudes correlated with a future behavior more strongly when they were easy to recall (accessible) and stable over time. Because of increased accessibility, attitudes more strongly predicted future behavior when participants had direct experience with the attitude object and reported their attitudes frequently. Because of the resulting attitude stability, the attitude-behavior association was strongest when attitudes were confident, when participants formed their attitude on the basis of behavior-relevant information, and when they received or were induced to think about one- rather than two-sided information about the attitude object.

Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: a meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation.

Crime, smoking, drug use, alcoholism, reckless driving, and many other unhealthy patterns of behavior that play out over a lifetime often debut during adolescence. Avoiding risks or buying time can set a different lifetime pattern. Changing unhealthy behaviors in adolescence would have a broad impact on society, reducing the burdens of disease, injury, human suffering, and associated economic costs. Any program designed to prevent or change such risky behaviors should be founded on a clear idea of what is normative (what behaviors, ideally, should the program foster?), descriptive (how are adolescents making decisions in the absence of the program?), and prescriptive (which practices can realistically move adolescent decisions closer to the normative ideal?). Normatively, decision processes should be evaluated for coherence (is the thinking process nonsensical, illogical, or self-contradictory?) and correspondence (are the outcomes of the decisions positive?). Behaviors that promote positive physical and mental health outcomes in modern society can be at odds with those selected for by evolution (e.g., early procreation). Healthy behaviors may also conflict with a decision maker's goals. Adolescents' goals are more likely to maximize immediate pleasure, and strict decision analysis implies that many kinds of unhealthy behavior, such as drinking and drug use, could be deemed rational. However, based on data showing developmental changes in goals, it is important for policy to promote positive long-term outcomes rather than adolescents' short-term goals. Developmental data also suggest that greater risk aversion is generally adaptive, and that decision processes that support this aversion are more advanced than those that support risk taking. A key question is whether adolescents are developmentally competent to make decisions about risks. In principle, barring temptations with high rewards and individual differences that reduce self-control (i.e., under ideal conditions), adolescents are capable of rational decision making to achieve their goals. In practice, much depends on the particular situation in which a decision is made. In the heat of passion, in the presence of peers, on the spur of the moment, in unfamiliar situations, when trading off risks and benefits favors bad long-term outcomes, and when behavioral inhibition is required for good outcomes, adolescents are likely to reason more poorly than adults do. Brain maturation in adolescence is incomplete. Impulsivity, sensation seeking, thrill seeking, depression, and other individual differences also contribute to risk taking that resists standard risk-reduction interventions, although some conditions such as depression can be effectively treated with other approaches. Major explanatory models of risky decision making can be roughly divided into (a) those, including health-belief models and the theory of planned behavior, that adhere to a "rational" behavioral decision-making framework that stresses deliberate, quantitative trading off of risks and benefits; and (b) those that emphasize nondeliberative reaction to the perceived gists or prototypes in the immediate decision environment. (A gist is a fuzzy mental representation of the general meaning of information or experience; a prototype is a mental representation of a standard or typical example of a category.) Although perceived risks and especially benefits predict behavioral intentions and risk-taking behavior, behavioral willingness is an even better predictor of susceptibility to risk taking-and has unique explanatory power-because adolescents are willing to do riskier things than they either intend or expect to do. Dual-process models, such as the prototype/willingness model and fuzzy-trace theory, identify two divergent paths to risk taking: a reasoned and a reactive route. Such models explain apparent contradictions in the literature, including different causes of risk taking for different individuals. Interventions to reduce risk taking must take into account the different causes of such behavior if they are to be effective. Longitudinal and experimental research are needed to disentangle opposing causal processes-particularly, those that produce positive versus negative relations between risk perceptions and behaviors. Counterintuitive findings that must be accommodated by any adequate theory of risk taking include the following: (a) Despite conventional wisdom, adolescents do not perceive themselves to be invulnerable, and perceived vulnerability declines with increasing age; (b) although the object of many interventions is to enhance the accuracy of risk perceptions, adolescents typically overestimate important risks, such as HIV and lung cancer; (c) despite increasing competence in reasoning, some biases in judgment and decision making grow with age, producing more "irrational" violations of coherence among adults than among adolescents and younger children. The latter occurs because of a known developmental increase in gist processing with age. One implication of these findings is that traditional interventions stressing accurate risk perceptions are apt to be ineffective or backfire because young people already feel vulnerable and overestimate their risk. In addition, research shows that experience is not a good teacher for children and younger adolescents, because they tend to learn little from negative outcomes (favoring the use of effective deterrents, such as monitoring and supervision), although learning from experience improves considerably with age. Experience in the absence of negative consequences may increase feelings of invulnerability and thus explain the decrease in risk perceptions from early to late adolescence, as exploration increases. Finally, novel interventions that discourage deliberate weighing of risks and benefits by adolescents may ultimately prove more effective and enduring. Mature adults apparently resist taking risks not out of any conscious deliberation or choice, but because they intuitively grasp the gists of risky situations, retrieve appropriate risk-avoidant values, and never proceed down the slippery slope of actually contemplating tradeoffs between risks and benefits.

/pdf/risk-and-rationality-in-adolescent-decision-making-3j8wuxlfve.pdf

Risk and Rationality in Adolescent Decision Making: Implications for Theory, Practice, and Public Policy

How and why individuals adopt innovations has motivated a great deal of research. This article examines individuals’ computing adoption processes through the lenses of three adoption theories: Rogers’s innovation diffusion theory, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model, the Technology Acceptance Model, and the United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. Incorporating all three models, this article suggests technology adoption is a complex, inherently social, developmental process; individuals construct unique yet malleable perceptions of technology that influence their adoption decisions. Thus, successfully facilitating technology adoption must address cognitive, emotional, and contextual concerns. This article also focuses specific attention on adoption theory outside of a formal organization and the implications of adoption theory on informal environments.

/pdf/understanding-technology-adoption-theory-and-future-2t4qiiqzzi.pdf

Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Directions for Informal Learning:

This article describes the integrative model of behavioral prediction (IM), the latest formulation of a reasoned action approach. The IM attempts to identify a limited set of variables that can account for a considerable proportion of the variance in any given behavior. More specifically, consistent with the original theory of reasoned action, the IM assumes that intentions are the immediate antecedents of behavior, but in addition, the IM recognizes that environmental factors and skills and abilities can moderate the intention-behavior relationship. Similar to the theory of planned behavior, the IM also assumes that intentions are a function of attitudes, perceived normative pressure and self-efficacy, but it views perceived normative pressure as a function of descriptive as well as of injunctive (i.e., subjective) norms. After describing the theory and addressing some of the criticisms directed at a reasoned action approach, the paper illustrates how the theory can be applied to understanding and changi...

/pdf/a-reasoned-action-approach-to-health-promotion-3oc5g74n4w.pdf

A reasoned action approach to health promotion.

The approximately 60 million members of Generation Y are a major force in the consumer marketplace and represent a significant behavioral shift. To develop the broad, multifaceted advertising strat...

Theory of Reasoned Action: Purchase Intention of Young Consumers

Purpose – The aim of this study is to determine, using the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), affluent female consumers' purchase intention of a controversial luxury product, apparel made with American alligator leather.Design/methodology/approach – Influence variables evaluated in the model included: attitude toward performing the behavior (purchasing alligator leather apparel); subjective norm, involvement (fashion involvement); controversy perception (social acceptance and endangerment status of the American alligator); price perception (price‐quality schema and prestige sensitivity); personality traits (self‐confidence and self‐consciousness); and demographics. A mail survey of 1,200 affluent female consumers residing in eight US metropolitan statistical areas defined as fashion centers was conducted.Findings – A total of 430 usable surveys were returned for a 36 percent response rate. The general linear model regression analysis revealed that attitude toward performing the behavior, subjective norm, co...

Predicting purchase intention of a controversial luxury apparel product

Who buys American alligator

Men's shopping satisfaction and store preferences

The domestic exotic leather industry (for the purposes of this study exotic leather was defined as ostrich, emu and American alligator) has been in existence for many years, but much of the raw leather is exported, resulting in a loss of value added for America. The purpose of this study was to explore fashion leaders’ and followers’ attitudes towards exotic leather apparel products. The theoretical framework used for this study was Sproles’ model of fashion adoption (Sproles 1979). This study was part of a larger research project which was designed to segment the market, profile consumers of exotic leather apparel products and develop promotional strategies. A questionnaire, mailed to 800 fashion professionals in eight regional fashion centres across the country, yielded a 50 per cent return rate. Results indicated that the Sproles model was effective in describing and characterising fashion leaders (adopters) and followers (Sproles 1979). Fashion leaders had a more favourable attitude towards exotic leather apparel products, had a greater purchase intention of such products, had higher cognitive motivations, and had a different shopping orientation from followers. Leaders enjoyed shopping more and were not as cost‐conscious, traditional, or conservative as followers. Understanding the differences between fashion leaders and followers will only serve to enhance and contribute to the economic development of the domestic exotic leather industry.

Bonnie D. Belleau

Papers

Theory of Reasoned Action: Purchase Intention of Young Consumers

Predicting purchase intention of a controversial luxury apparel product

Who buys American alligator

Men's shopping satisfaction and store preferences

Fashion leaders’ and followers’ attitudes towards exotic leather apparel products