Attitudes and Behavior

                                                             ii.      Low self-monitors are much more ‘in line with their inner selves’. They follow their own norms and do not conform to the norms around them

b.      Direct experience: as opposed to hear-say from others or information from books, direct exposure makes far stronger links between attitudes and behavior. If you’ve actually seen someone get hit by a car, you’re more likely to drive safely and carefully than if you’ve read about some many thousands of traffic deaths a year.

3.       Qualities of attitudes

a.       General vs specific attitudes:

                                                               i.      General attitudes concern several behaviors, they are aggregate attitudes. In other words, attitudes towards objects. One object can be linked with several behaviors. In the article on Attitudes Defined, I mentioned an attitude on butterflies (an object). Behaviors that are in relation to this can be: smacking the butterfly, studying its wings, letting it be in peace et cetera.

                                                             ii.      Specific attitudes: these concern a single behavior, they are specific to that behavior. A specific attitude is an attitude towards the smacking of butterflies. (smacking being a behavior).

                                                            iii.      Note of importance: when measuring links between attitudes and behaviors, according to Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977, you should always use measurements of both on the same level. Thus, if you measure attitudes on a general level, then you also must measure behavior on the general level. Don’t try to see the connection between the general attitude towards butterflies, by only assessing the behavior of smacking. Or vice versa, the correction between attitudes towards butterfly-smacking may be very weakly correlated to the overall general behavior towards butterflies. This is also called the Compatibility Principle

b.      A second quality of attitudes is the attitude strength. A lot about this is said in the appropriately called article ‘Attitude Strength’. Cut short: strong attitudes usually make stronger links between attitudes and behavior. But attitudes, even strong ones, can be ambivalent, in which case the person might experience a lot of confusion, and the relationship between attitudes and behavior can be very limited.

Overall then, these were the three main factors influencing the correlation of attitudes and behavior. Another way of putting this, is done in the model of Ajzen & Fishbein, called Theory of Reasoned Action, and the Theory of Planned Behavior of Ajzen, building on the first theory. More on this in the article ‘Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior’.