Theory of Reasoned Action

10 Key excerpts on "Theory of Reasoned Action"

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  Health Promotion

  Evidence and Experience

  • Kevin Lucas, Barbara Lloyd(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  The Theory of Reasoned Action Two closely related models, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), proposed by Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein (1980), and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen & Madden, 1986), have been highly influential in health promotion for nearly three decades. In contrast to the shortcomings of the HBM, proponents of these models point out that that they are highly Reasoned Action? 91 specific, particularly in the way in which their variables are combined. The models also provide an apparently rigorous method for generating rele-vant beliefs (Mullen, Hersey & Iverson, 1987; Sutton, 1987). The major tenets of these models have either tacitly or explicitly provided a basis for many health promotion interventions. These began with early teaching materials for use in schools (for example, TACADE/HEC, 1984), individ-ual advice (for example, HEC, 1986) and mass media campaigns both in the UK (for example, BBC/HEA, 1990), and the USA (Bauman, 1987), as well as being influential on basic texts on health education theory and practice (for example, Ewles & Simnett, 1985). Fishbein and Ajzen argue that the immediate determinant of an indi-vidual’s behaviour is her/his behavioural intention to perform that behav-iour (BI). This argument assumes that the behaviour in question is under volitional control, an assumption which is discussed below. It follows there-fore that intention should be the best predictor of behaviour. Intention itself is held to be a function of two major determinants, the first of which is concerned with the individual’s perception of the positive or negative results of performing the behaviour. This factor is termed the attitude toward the behaviour (AB). The second determinant is concerned with the person’s beliefs that important others think she or he should or should not perform that behaviour, and is termed the subjective norm for that behaviour (SN).

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  Encyclopedia of Health and Behavior

  • Norman B. Anderson(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2001). Efficacy of the theory of planned behavior: A meta-analytic review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40 , 471-499. Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experi-mental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 75-109). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54 , 493-503. LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. actions. Social Forces, 13 , 230-237. Theory of Reasoned Action The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is a general theory of behavior that was developed largely in response to the repeated failure of traditional attitude measures to predict specific behaviors. First intro-duced in 1967 by Martin Fishbein, the theory was fur-ther developed by Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (see, e.g., Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). In an atmosphere where it was assumed that behavioral prediction was difficult (if not impossible), the theory began with the premise that behavior could be pre-dicted simply by asking a person whether he or she was or was not going to perform that behavior. Not surprisingly, people turned out to be very good pre-dictors of their own behavior. Thus, according to the theory, performance or nonperformance of a given behavior is primarily determined by the strength of a person’s intention to perform (or to not perform) that behavior, where intention is defined as the subjective likelihood that one will perform (or try to perform) the behavior in question.

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  The Theory of Reasoned Action

  Its application to AIDS-Preventive Behaviour

  • Cynthia Gallois, Malcolm McCamish, Deborah J Terry(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Garland Science

    (Publisher)

  In considering TRA, it is important to find a balance between the adequacy of prediction and explanation on the one hand, and parsimony and simplicity on the other. The literature reveals a number of new variables and new relationships among variables that are proposed to improve the predictive power of TRA. The metatheoretical criticisms are also focused on widening the range of prediction and explanation of TRA. The theory of planned behaviour has already extended the range of prediction of TRA, and we must now ask whether new variables and relationships add sufficiently to have practical value. For the case of safer sex, this question can be answered in part by looking at the kind of activity safer sex is, and the particular factors that are important in safer sexual behaviours.

  Theoretical Issues

  The Theory of Reasoned Action includes the concepts of beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms, intentions, and behaviour as its major components. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975 ; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980 ) argued that these variables were necessary and sufficient to predict behaviours under the volitional control of actors. Despite the intuitive appeal of the theory, the past decade or so has seen a number of questions raised. These have included the adequacy of the conceptualisation of attitude, the measurement of the belief-based determinants of attitude and their relation to the direct measure, and the best way to determine which beliefs are salient to behaviour. In addition, the capacity of subjective norm to capture all the important normative influences on intention has been challenged, and additional normative variables have been proposed. Interactions between attitude and norm in predicting intention have also been posited. Finally, intention, its predictors, and its relation to behaviour have been questioned. We will examine each of these concepts in the context of research on safer sex and HIV-preventive behaviour.

  Attitude

  The Theory of Reasoned Action adopts an expectancy-value (EV) model of attitude. The EV model claims that attitude is determined by expectations about the object, which are evaluated as positive or negative. The attitude, then, is some function of the expectations and their associated values (e.g., see Bagozzi, 1984 , 1985 ; Feather, 1982 ). In TRA, this formulation can be seen in the belief-based measure of attitude, where be havioural beliefs (e.g., the perceived likelihood of various outcomes of using condoms for sexual intercourse) are multiplied by the evaluation of each outcome (see Terry et al.,

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  Applied Social Psychology

  • Gün R Semin, Klaus Fiedler, Gün R Semin, Klaus Fiedler(Authors)
  • 1996(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  How these different factors are weighted and integrated is another matter, and the Theory of Reasoned Action can be seen as providing a logical account of these processes, rather than an account that reflects the actual processes involved. This objection relates to a second kind of problem that is frequently raised in connection with the Theory of Reasoned Action, namely that it is better suited to the prediction and understanding of challenging behavioural deci-sions that require the individual to deliberate the pros and cons of alternative courses of action than to the prediction and understanding of everyday, routine behaviours, or behaviours that have a strong habitual component. 20 General Frameworks in Applied Social Psychology Much of our everyday behaviour, . according to this line of argument, is engaged in rather spontaneously and unthinkingly: it is more a matter of habit than of careful consideration. Consistent with this, various investigators have reported a sign ificant direct link between previous behaviour and current behaviour, unmediated by the constructs of the Theory of Reasoned Action. A widely cited study of this type is the one reported by Bentler and Speckart (1979), who studied alcohol, marijuana and hard drug use among college students. Among other things, they found that the statistical relationsh ip between previous behaviour and present behaviour was not fully mediated by intentions, or by the other TRA constructs. This is certainly inconsistent with the Theory of Reasoned Action, which leads one to expect that the influence of past behaviour on present behaviour will be mediated by constructs with in the model. There is, of course, a conceptual problem with the past behaviour-present behaviour relationship. Past behaviour cannot in any real sense be said to 'cause ' present behaviour, any more than the fact that you got out of bed at 7.30 this morning was 'caused ' by the fact that you got out of bed at 7.30 yesterday morning.

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  Cultural Psychology

  A Special Issue of the journal of Consumer Psychology

  • Durairaj Maheswaran, Sharon Shavitt(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Cultural and Situational Contingencies and the Theory of Reasoned Action: Application to Fast Food Restaurant Consumption Richard P. Bagozzi

  School of Business

  University of Michigan

  Nancy Wong

  Department of Marketing

  University of Hawaii

  Shuzo Abe

  Faculty of Business Administration

  Yokohama National University

  Massimo Bergami

  Department of Business Economics

  University of Bologna

  This study investigated the usefulness of the Theory of Reasoned Action for fast food restaurant patronage decisions. The Theory of Reasoned Action was found to generalize across four samples drawn from the United States (N = 246), Italy (N = 123), The People’s Republic of China (N = 264), and Japan (N = 419). However, predictions under the Theory of Reasoned Action were found to vary, depending on the social setting (eating alone or eating with friends) and cultural orientation (independent vs. interdependent). Among other results, subjective norms were found to influence decisions when eating with friends, but not when alone; the effects of attitudes, subjective norms, and past behavior on intentions were greater for Americans than Italians, Chinese, or Japanese; and in general, more explained variance occurred for Western (American, Italian) than Eastern (Chinese, Japanese) cultures.

  The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), a model of the determinants of volitional behavior, maintains that behavior is directly influenced by intentions to act, and, in turn, intentions to act are determined by one’s attitude toward the act and felt subjective norm that one should act (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). Consumer researchers have applied the TRA to a wide variety of behaviors over the years, including the consumption of automobiles, banking services, computer software, coupons, detergents, and soft drinks, among many others (e.g., Lutz, 1977; Ryan & Bonfield, 1980; Sheppard, Hartwick, & Warshaw, 1988).

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  Planned Behavior

  The Relationship between Human Thought and Action

  • Mason Gross, Julie Christian(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  7Implications of Goal Theories for the Theoriesof Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior Charles Abraham and Paschal Sheeran

  In his presidential address to the first annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Division of Personality and Social Psychology, Allport (1947) insisted that it was “necessary” for psychologists to adopt of “the concept of ‘intention.’” Contrasting intentions with drives and instincts, he recommended that psychologists study “private worlds of desire, aspiration, and conscience” (p.186) and acknowledge the role of longer-term goals in directing and make sense of everyday action. He proposed that current goals are best understood as the means by which longer-term goals are realized; “the specific goals we set for ourselves are almost always subsidiary to our long range intentions. A good parent, a good neighbour, a good citizen is not good because his [sic ] specific goals are acceptable but because his successive goals are ordered to a dependable and socially desirable set of values” (p. 188). In the present paper, we contend that Allport’s insights concerning the relations between longer-term goals, on the one hand, and intentions to perform specific behaviors, on the other, is overlooked by the dominant accounts of cognition-behavior relations—the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein, 1967; 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1985; 1991). We argue that these theories should be augmented to take account of insights from goal theories and we make several suggestions about how this development might be achieved.

  The Theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior

  The TPB is an extension of Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) that was designed to permit accurate prediction of behaviors that present problems of volitional control (Ajzen, 1991). Like the TRA, the TPB proposes; (a) that the best predictor of behavior is the person’s intention or decision to perform it (e.g., “I intend to do X”), (b) that intentions are determined by people’s evaluations of performing behavior (attitude ; e.g., “Doing X would be good/bad”) and by their perceptions of social pressure to perform it (subjective norm ; “People who are important to me think that I should do X”), and (c) that external variables (variables not contained in the model) only have indirect effects on behavior—these variables either moderate, or their effects are mediated by, components of the model. The TPB extends the TRA by including one additional construct—perceived behavioral control

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  Media Choice

  A Theoretical and Empirical Overview

  • Tilo Hartmann(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Action Theory, Theory of Planned Behavior and Media Choice Tilo Hartmann

  Action theory regards people as decision-makers who follow intentions and voluntarily pursue their goals (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). According to this theory, people may be affected by environmental and inner pressures and affordances, but ultimately behavior is guided by reflective, higher-order cognitive processes (Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Westerick, Renckstorf, Lammers, & Wester, 2006). People’s higher-order cognitive processing responds to immediate “forces” such as internal drives or external pressures, but is not considered to be fully determined by them. Accordingly, action theory underlines the capability of people to cognitively ponder their environment and to run projections regarding various outcomes before they choose an option and undertake an action. A full explanation of media choice from the perspective of action theory involves the following four components: (1) it stresses users’ decision-making (Frisch & Clemen, 1994; Marewski, Galesic, & Gigerenzer, this volume), which may include a likelihood-estimation and evaluation of possible rewards and costs (c.f., Eccles & Wigfield, 2002); (2) it highlights the way in which intentions are developed within the decision process; (3) it explicates how an intention is eventually implemented and shielded against competing action plans (Gollwitzer, 1990; Heckhausen & Beckmann, 1990); and (4) it thus tells how intentions result in actual behavior (Sheeran, Webb, & Gollwitzer, 2005).

  A specific theoretical framework, which originated in social psychology and strongly builds on action-theoretical ideas, is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TOPB; Ajzen, 1988, 1991; see Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005, for an excellent summary; see for reviews, Armitage & Conner, 2001; Hagger, Chatzisarantis, & Biddle, 2002; Conner & Armitage, 1998; Sutton, 1998). TOPB can be understood as an extension of its precursor, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; for a comparison of TRA and TOPB, see Madden, Ellen, & Ajzen, 1992). The scope of TOPB is—as already suggested by the labels “planned behavior” and “reasoned action”—predicting and explaining human behavior that is based on motivational choices and intentions.

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  Predicting and Changing Behavior

  The Reasoned Action Approach

  • Martin Fishbein, Icek Ajzen(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  According to Reyna and Farley (2006), for example, “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” (p. 1). Similarly, Gibbons et al. (1998) have insisted that “not all behaviors are logical or rational…. It would be hard to argue that behaviors that impair one’s health or well being, such as having sex without contraception when pregnancy is not desired or drunk driving, are either goal-directed or rational…. Nonetheless, these behaviors are common, especially among young persons” (p. 1164). And consistent with this, Reyna and Farley suggest that “the older models of deliberative decision making (resulting in behavioral intentions and planned behaviors) fail to account for a substantial amount of adolescent risk taking, which is spontaneous, reactive, and impulsive” (p. 6).

  These quotes illustrate two basic misconceptions regarding our reasoned action approach. First, the theorists assume that some behaviors are inherently irrational, and, because they believe that our theory presumes rationality on the part of the actor, they claim that our theory cannot account for the behaviors in question. We take issue with this argument on both theoretical and empirical grounds. As we have repeatedly tried to make clear (see Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980, 2000, 2005; see also Chapter 6 ), there is nothing in our theory to suggest that people are rational or that they behave in a rational manner. We assume that in the course of their lives people form various kinds of behavioral, normative, and control beliefs. Many of these beliefs are based on direct experience and conform reasonably well to reality, but some are inaccurate and misrepresent the true state of affairs; some are derived by way of deliberative inference processes and others by way of intuition; some are based on logical trains of thought, and some are biased by wishful thinking or other self-serving motives. Whatever the origin of their beliefs, however, we assume that people’s attitudes, perceptions of normative pressure, perceptions of behavioral control, and ultimately their intentions follow spontaneously and inevitably from their beliefs. It is only in this sense that behavior is considered to be reasoned.

  The argument that our approach cannot deal with irrational behavior can also be challenged from an empirical perspective. In fact, whether a behavior is considered rational or irrational depends on the definition of rationality and, in any event, is irrelevant for our purposes; we should be able to predict and explain virtually any behavior on the basis of our theory. The empirical evidence reviewed throughout this book strongly supports this argument. Our model of behavioral prediction has been shown to be valid in many different contexts. Some of the behaviors that have been predicted involve considerable risk and may appear to be irrational, such as exceeding the speed limit, smoking cigarettes, or having sex without a condom. Even the performance of addictive behaviors has been studied quite successfully within this theoretical framework. Consider, for example, use of illicit drugs and alcohol consumption. In a study of these behaviors among college students (Armitage, Conner, Loach, & Willetts, 1999), self-reported frequency of cannabis use and of alcohol consumption were well predicted from intentions assessed 1 week earlier. The study also provided evidence to show that these intentions could be predicted from attitudes, perceived norms, and perceptions of behavioral control, which, in turn, could be explained by examining the underlying behavioral, normative, and control beliefs.

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  The Handbook of Behavior Change

  • Martin S. Hagger, Linda D. Cameron, Kyra Hamilton, Nelli Hankonen, Taru Lintunen(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  As they get ready to leave, they may proceed without Behavioral beliefs Normative beliefs Control beliefs Perceived behavioral control Actual behavioral control Subjective norm Attitude toward the behavior Intention Behavior Figure 2.1 Theory of planned behavior Changing Behavior Using the Theory of Planned Behavior 19 forming a conscious intention to drive their cars to work. However, if asked, they could easily retrieve and report their (implicit) intention. 2.2.3 Determinants of Intentions Consistent with the notion of reasoned action, people’ s behavioral intentions are assumed to be guided by some measure of deliberation, where novel behaviors and important decisions receive more thorough contemplation than relatively less important or routine behaviors (Ajzen & Sexton, 1999). According to the TPB, three kinds of con- siderations guide the formation of intentions: beliefs about the likely consequences and experi- ences resulting from performance of the behavior (behavioral beliefs), which, in their aggregate, result in the formation of an attitude toward the behavior; beliefs about the expectations and behaviors of significant social referents (norma- tive beliefs), which produce perceived social pressure to engage or not to engage in the beha- vior, or subjective norm; and beliefs about factors that may facilitate or impede performance of the behavior (control beliefs), which result in per- ceived behavioral control or a sense of self- efficacy (Bandura, 1997). It is assumed that the behavioral, normative, and control beliefs that are readily accessible in memory are the prevailing determinants, respectively, of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control and that these latter variables influence the behavioral intention (see Figure 2.1). These processes are described in greater detail in Section 2.2.4, which deals with the structural model.

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  Rethinking Rational Choice Theory

  A Companion on Rational and Moral Action

  • Jan de Jonge(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Most rational choice theorists would agree with him. Satz and Ferejohn wouldn’t disagree with such a description of the role of psychological fac- tors in an ‘externalist’ explanation of intentional actions, I guess. Therefore, I propose to regard theories or hypotheses in which the role of belief-preference couples is restricted to that of an activating stimulus as externalist theories. Theories about intentional actions in which decision processes are explicit I regard as internalist theories. I will now proceed with the internalist approach to rational choice. 3 Rational choice explanations and folk psychology Much of the methodological distinctiveness of rational choice theory stems from the fact that a theory of rationality and intentionality lies 2 Rule-led behaviour, which would also explain behavioural regularities, is explained by external institutional constraints. Intentional Action and Situational Logic 105 at its theoretical core. An intention to act requires both a belief and a desire or pro-attitude. The formation of a pro-attitude requires two transformations of the belief-desire (or expectations-preference) couple. The first is obvious; the belief and desire must be brought together. This transformation is what is usually thought of as ‘practical reason- ing’, reasoning from an end to the adequacy of the means. But this is not enough. We do not perform every action that we believe would promote some good or satisfy some obligation. The second state is that we assess the consequences of an action and commit ourselves; that is, that we fulfil a primary reason. It is true that someone who has a desire that he believes he can realise in a certain way will have a tendency to act in that way. But most such tendencies (or dispositions) are not realized.

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