Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior

by Icek Ajzen, Martin Fishbein

Core text in attitude courses. Explains "theory and reasoned action" model and then applies the model to various cases.

Genres: Psychology

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 1980

Reviews

[Rui · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was helpful for my work but not for my entertainment.

[Mahnoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explains the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior then goes on to explain its various measures, dimensions, and applications in different contexts and settings. After earlier reading about the two theories in Glanz's Health Education & Health Behavior book, I read this to get out a thorough understanding of the evolution of the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior which ultimately led to the integrated behavior model.

I loved the accessibility of this book, perhaps I've read limited books on this discipline so far but I am impressed with the parsimony and ease of all books I've read so far. Maybe it's also the fact that I am practicing this work and reading up to gain theoretical understanding too.

This book also deals with the measurement of its theories, a facet that I find very interesting.

[Paulus Widiatmoko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars? I don’t have professional training in polling / surveys or in social psychology, so this book is my first real entry into that field. The authors do a good job of laying out their theory in plain English, and comparing it to previous methods of studying public attitudes, which they point out often used sprawling definitions that didn’t offer much in the way of parsimony or predictive value.

The authors construct a chain linking behavior to an individual's intention to carry out that behavior, which in turn is the product of both individual attitudes towards the behavior (along a bipolar good/bad scale) and the individual’s perception of social norms (views of parents, job, etc); that combination of individual attitude and social norm is further the product of beliefs about the behavior and others' view of the individual were they to perform the behavior.

The book acknowledges that while measurements of intention to carry out a behavior may be the best apparent predictor of actual behavior (at least in the aggregate, and when determined at a level of specificity matching the behavior in question), they are not in fact a perfect predictor of behavior — intentions may change on the basis of new information and accompanying changes in beliefs, and other factors may prevent an individual from acting on their intentions. This disconnect between intention and behavior varies with the activity in question, so a survey of voter intentions the day (or week, or month) before an election will not necessarily fully predict the outcome, and other more contested behaviors may be even harder to survey accurately. Having conceded this point, though, the authors generally breeze past it in the rest of their case studies — I would’ve liked much more focus on this issue throughout, since at the end of the day it is the behavior that we are really trying to divine from these surveys.

The most significant aspect of the argument here is the emphasis that surveying opinions on a target is emphatically not the same thing as surveying opinions a behavior related to that target — so someone who responds to a survey that they have a favorable view of the Taliban would not necessarily be planning to donate money to the Taliban within the next month, for example. This also applies to programs that attempt to change attitudes and by extension behavior, which the authors argue must be aimed at actual behaviors instead of a general target to have any chance at being effective at influencing behavior. The proliferation of poorly thought through “CVE” programming currently en vogue could probably stand to revisit this point more regularly.

This is well and good, but there are still some gaps in the book’s proposed theory and methodology. There’s no discussion of social desirability bias skewing survey responses in a way that obscures actual beliefs and intentions — an issue that might be of particular relevance when trying to ascertain intentions and attitudes around semi-clandestine activities, or activities that might expose the respondent to risk of coercion, social retribution, or violence. I noted that in many of the book’s cases, respondents seemed to weight their personal attitudes more heavily than those of their social normative referents as factors in shaping their intentions, and I wondered to what degree this holds across social systems or might be an artifact of people overstating their own independent agency. (My own analytical bias, at least, is to attribute a much more important role to institutions and organizations in shaping individual attitudes and behaviors.)

Again, I’m just entering into this topic so will have to read more broadly before I really have a handle on some of the methodology questions; this was a helpful start, if not entirely convincing on all points.

[Vodanh · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's an useful book for my research