Attitude is another concept that has been investigated by social psychologists as a variable for explaining human behaviour (Ajzen, 2005). Despite considerable debate on the attitude-behaviour correlation, a meta- analysis conducted by Kraus (1995) suggests that attitudes significantly and substantially predict behaviour.
47
Attitude is defined as the “disposition to respond favourably or unfavourably to an object, person, situation, or event” (Ajzen, 2005, p. 3). It has been claimed that attitudes have three components: (1) affective, which is the positive or negative feeling towards the issue; and (2) cognitive, which are the beliefs about the issue; and (3) conative, which are the inclinations, intentions, commitments and actions regarding the issue (Ajzen, 2005). According to Ackermann and Palmer (2014), there have been many attempts to measure attitude. Initially the focus was on developing attitude measures and establishing the validity of the “attitude” construct and its predictive validity. Then, the focus shifted towards the influence of attitudes on behaviour.
A well-established theory regarding the relationship between attitude and action is the “Theory of Reasoned Action” [TRA] proposed by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). The TRA “is one of the most prominent models of behaviour prediction that incorporates the influence of human attitudes” (T. J. Brown, 1999, p. 681). This theory suggests that two factors have an influence on a person’s intention: (1) behavioural beliefs, which are the salient judgment/belief of a person in favour of or against performing the behaviour, and (2) normative beliefs, which are defined as the salient perception/belief of social pressure to perform, or not, the behaviour. It also suggests that demographics and personality are external variables that might, or might not, influence beliefs (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). The “Theory of Planned Behaviour” [TPB] was developed due to the TRA’s limitation regarding its lack of attention to choice in predicting behaviour. Therefore, the TPB focuses on prediction of “behavioural intention” (Ajzen, 2011) and includes a measure of perceived control (control beliefs, which are the salient perception/belief factors that might facilitate or impede the behaviour) when the behaviour is not totally under a person’s control (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2014). In leisure literature, the “control beliefs” are referred as “constraints” (E. L. Jackson, 1990 ). Both theories assume reasoned action, meaning that when deciding to engage, or not, in a behaviour, people systematically process the information available and consider the implications of their actions (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).
These theories have been widely applied in studies on consumer behaviours which have provided support for the model for the prediction of behaviour in both experimental and naturalistic settings (Ajzen, 2011; Ajzen & Driver, 1991; T. J. Brown, 1999). However, critics of these models claim that their explanation of actual behaviour is quite low (Armitage & Conner, 2001), and that attitudes continue to be imprecisely defined, as there is no interaction between implicit and explicit attitudes (Ackermann & Palmer, 2014). In response to these and other critics such as the “rationality” assumption, the lack of inclusion of affect and emotions, and the measurement context, Ajzen (2011) reviewed the use of the TPB model on different studies and his results re-enforced the claim that the model is efficient in predicting intentional behaviour.
Despite the TRA and TPB being some of the most prominent models used in explaining the relationship between attitudes and behaviour, their use in tourism has been limited (T. J. Brown, 1999; Inbakaran, Jackson, & Zhang, 2007; Ryu & Han, 2010; Ryu & Jang, 2006). These studies concluded that the models could well predict visitor intention towards a particular behavioural intention. Furthermore, it has been suggested that
48
including “past behaviour” within the TRA model could improve it (Ryu & Han, 2010; Ryu & Jang, 2006). Ryu and Jang (2006) and Ryu and Han (2010) suggested that the modified model accurately predicts visitor intentions towards local cuisine. Regarding the three elements of the TPB model (behavioural, normative and control beliefs), some of the results of previous studies suggested that “attitudes” (as a function of behavioural beliefs and outcome evaluation) predict visitor behaviours better than “normative beliefs” (T. J. Brown, 1999; Ryu & Han, 2010; Ryu & Jang, 2006). It appears that this result is not only prevailing in tourism studies as Armitage and Conner (2001), in a meta-analysis of 185 independent studies, found that “normative beliefs” are generally weaker than “attitudes” when predicting both intention and behaviour. However, Inbakaran’s et al. (2007) results suggest that “normative beliefs” are important when studying a community approach towards tourism development. These mixed-results suggest that the importance of the TRA and TPB elements vary according to the issue under investigation. In addition, T.J. Brown’s (1999) results showed that the strength of “normative beliefs” in visitor behaviour towards a culturally inappropriate behaviour (climbing Uluru for example) depends on the type of visitor (climbers were more open to social influence than non-climbers).
There are other studies within the field of tourism that have not used the TRA or TPB models but have incorporated “opinions” statements (which differs from “attitudes” as there is the absence of a belief strength or evaluation measure) towards a particular issue. For example, opinions have been used to explore market segmentation regarding tourism development (Weaver & Lawton, 2001; Weaver & Lawton, 2004; Williams & Lawson, 2001), visitor use of public transport (Dallen, 2007), and environmental issues such as commitments, behaviours, and management strategies, among others (Andereck, 2009; Dolnicar, 2010; Fairweather et al., 2005; Y. Huang, Deng, Li, & Zhong, 2008; A. K. Kim & Weiler, 2013; P. H. Lai, Sorice, Nepal, & Cheng, 2009; Weaver & Lawton, 2002).
To conclude, it has been argued that when studying psychographic characteristics, a variety of variables should be included. It appears that there is no global agreement on which specific psychographic is the most important when seeking to understand behaviour. Therefore, a holistic approach needs to be undertaken when studying psychographics (Blamey & Braithwaite, 1997; Reisinger, 2004).