Alliance Production Way (APW)

action and planned behaviour

One of the major issues addressed in this thesis concerns the role of involvement within the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour and, specifically, the moderating effect of the variable on the relative predictive weight of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control. Involvement has been consistently shown to increase the strength of attitudes and to enhance their impact on intentions and behaviour. A question that arises, when one thinks in terms of the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour, is what happens to the predictive value of the remaining components of the models, when the impact of attitudes is enhanced. Since research so far has mainly focused on the moderating role of involvement on attitude-behaviour consistency, and as other determinants of behaviour are not explicitly included in this research, it is difficult to extend any conclusions to the relationship of subjective norm and perceived control with intentions and behaviour (Pieters, 1988).

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It is possible, however, that individuals whose behaviour is strongly influenced by their attitudes, take less into account other, non-personal considerations. It is possible, therefore, that involvement moderates the relative importance of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control by determining the strength and impact of attitudes on intentions and behaviour. It is suggested here that, because involved individuals hold stronger, more consequential attitudes, they base their intentions and behaviour mostly on these attitudes, and are less inclined to take social influence and control problems into consideration when deciding on a course of action. By contrast, less involved individuals, because their attitudes are weaker, are more likely to be influenced in their behavioural decisions by the anticipated ease or difficulty of performing a behaviour, or by the expectations of significant social referents.

The moderating role of involvement within the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour is examined in this thesis in a consumer behaviour context. The main issue addressed concerns how consumers’ product involvement, in other words, the perceived importance and personal relevance of a product class and their interest in this product class, moderates the relative impact of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control on their intentions to engage in product related behaviours. It is assumed that the importance individuals attach to a product class is also reflected in the importance attached to a product related action (e.g. purchase, usage of the product). It is expected that individuals involved with a product category hold strong attitudes and base their intentions to perform product related behaviours mostly on these attitudes, rather than on their subjective norms and perceived control. By contrast, low involvement is expected to be associated with the opposite pattern of relations between the variables. Furthermore, following recent findings indicating that high involvement

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strengthens the intention-behaviour relation (Pieters and Verplanken, 1995), it is expected that high involvement also enhances the impact of intentions on behaviour.

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Part III

Th e

in t e g r a t io n

o f

a u t o m a t ic

a n d

c o n t r o l l e d

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4.14

The distinction between automatic and controlled processes

The model of automatic attitude activation (Fazio, 1986) and the theories of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) might at first appear to represent two contrasting accounts of the attitude-behaviour sequence. However, an absolute distinction between automatic and controlled processes of attitudinal influence on behaviour is not possible, as most processes are complex enough to involve both automatic and controlled components.

An attitude-to-behaviour process that is mainly deliberative in nature may still involve some components that are automatic. For example, in forming an attitude towards a behaviour, the chronic accessibility of individuals’ beliefs about the behaviour and the chronic accessibility of evaluations of those beliefs are relevant. More accessible beliefs and evaluations are more likely to be salient and thus to influence attitudes towards the behaviour. An additional manner in which automatic processes may operate in the formation of an attitude towards a behaviour stems from the potential influence of the attitude towards the object in question. According to the composite model of the attitude-behaviour relation (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993), an attitude towards an attitudinal object (the target o f a behaviour) may function as a determinant of attitudes towards behaviours that involve this object. The more accessible the attitude towards this object is from memory, the more likely it is that it will influence, not only the sort of outcomes that one believes accrue from performance of the behaviour, but also the valence with which these outcomes are regarded (Fazio,

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According to the theory of reasoned action, attitudes and subjective norms are typically computed anew each time an individual encounters an attitude object, since the specification elements of the behavioural situation change (e.g. context, time). However, Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) note that the theory of reasoned action does not imply that prior to performing each and every action, people systematically scrutinise the determinants of their behaviour. Instead, the processes involved can be viewed as largely automatic or imphcit; only in rare cases we become fully aware of these processes. Attitudes and subjective norms may be solidified and activated every time an individual encounters the behavioural object in an automatic manner. Such reliance on pre-developed attitudes and subjective norms is more likely when past and current behavioural situations are quite similar (Fazio, 1990a).

Likewise, the essentially spontaneous process described by Fazio (1986) may itself sometimes involve some components that are controlled. For example, situations sometimes provide contextual cues that prompt individuals to access and consider their attitudes before acting. In an experiment by Snyder and Kendzierski (1982), individuals with favourable attitudes towards psychological research were exposed to a sign requesting volunteers to participate in a particular experiment. The subjects overheard two confederates discuss the request. In the experimental condition, one of the confederates said that the decision is ‘really a question o f how worthwhile you think experiments are’. In the control condition, the confederate said: ‘beats me - it’s up to you’. Although all subjects felt positive about psychological research, significantly more volunteered in the experimental condition than in the control condition. Apparently, the confederate’s cue was sufficient to prompt subjects to consider their own attitudes towards volunteering. Such activation as a result of prompting may

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occur regardless of whether the individual’s attitude is one that involves a strong object-evaluation association, that is, even in cases where the attitude would not be automatically activated upon encountering the attitude object. In such cases, the accessibility of the attitude is irrelevant. Yet, once the attitude is activated, it may colour individuals’ definition of the event and affect subsequent behaviour in a fairly automatic manner, that is, without consideration of the potential consequences of the behaviour. Thus, an otherwise automatic attitude-to-behaviour sequence may be initiated by a controlled activation of the relevant attitude.

Although an absolute distinction between automatic and controlled processes is not feasible, it is still possible to distinguish between processes that are predominantly controlled versus automatic. The critical distinction between Fazio’s (1986) approach to the attitude-behaviour sequence and Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980; Ajzen, 1985, 1991) approach centres on the extent to which they assert that the behavioural decision involves effortful reasoning, as opposed to spontaneously flowing from an individual’s definition of the event that is occurring.