Attitude-Behavior Relations: A Theoretical Analysis and ......(Mischel, 1968; Wiggins, 1973)....

Psychological Bulletin1977, Vol. 84, No. 5, 8-918

Attitude-Behavior Relations: A Theoretical Analysisand Review of Empirical Research

Icek AjzenUniversity of Massachusetts—Amherst

Martin FishbeinUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Research on the relation between attitude and behavior is examined in light ofthe correspondence between attitudinal and behavioral entities. Such entities aredefined by their target, action, context, and time elements. A review of availableempirical research supports the contention that strong attitude-behavior relationsdre obtained only under high correspondence between at least the target andaction elements of the attitudinal and behavioral entities. This conclusion iscompared with the rather pessimistic assessment of the utility of the attitudeconcept found in much contemporary social psychological literature.

Reports of rather low or nonsignificantrelations between attitudinal predictors andbehavioral criteria have been accumulatingfor more than 40 years (cf. Wicker, 1969).These negative findings led many investiga-tors to reconsider the nature of the attitude-behavior relation (e.g., Calder & Ross, 1973;D. T. Campbell, 1963; DeFleur & Westie,1958, 1963; Deutscher, 1966, 1969, 1973;Ehrlich, 1969; Kelman, 1974; Rokeach,1967; Tittle & Hill, 1967). In a parallel de-velopment, it was possible to discern a grow-ing disenchantment with the attitude concept,and the general consensus was that measuresof attitude have little value for the predic-tion of overt behavior.

Recently, however, social psychology hasbeen witnessing a revival of interest in therelationship between attitude and action(e.g., Brannon, 1976; Liska, 1975; D. J.Schneider, 1976; Schuman & Johnson, 1976).The emerging position seems to be that atti-tude is only one of many factors determiningbehavior. Although this position reaffirms theimportance of attitudes, it leads to the expec-tation that attitudes will often be unrelatedto behavior.

In a number of publications we have pre-sented ideas and data that are clearly atvariance with this assessment of the attitude

Requests for reprints should be sent to Icek Ajzen,Department of Psychology, University of Massa-chusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003.

concept and its utility (Ajzen & Fishbein,1973; Fishbein, 1967, 1973; Fishbein &Ajzen, 1972, 1974, 1975). We have arguedthat a person's attitude toward an object in-fluences the overall pattern of his responsesto the object, but that it need not predict anygiven action. According to this analysis, asingle behavior is determined by the inten-tion to perform the behavior in question. Aperson's intention is in turn a function of hisattitude toward performing the behavior andof his subjective norm. It follows that a singleact is predictable from the attitude towardthat act, provided that there is a high corre-lation between intention and behavior.1

These arguments can be incorporated with-in a more general framework that focuses onthe question of correspondence between mea-sures of attitude and behavior. The purposeof the present article is to reexamine theattitude-behavior relationship. A theoreticalanalysis of the correspondence between atti-tudinal predictors and behavioral criteria isfollowed by a review of pertinent empiricalresearch. It is shown that people's actions arefound to be systematically related to theirattitudes when the nature of the attitudinalpredictors and behavioral criteria are takeninto consideration.

1 Even when the intention is primarily under thecontrol of normative considerations, its correlationwith attitude toward the action is usually found tobe quite high.

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ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR RELATIONS 889

Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

Attitudes are held with respect to someaspect of the individual's world, such as an-other person, a physical object, a behavior, ora policy. Although many definitions of atti-tude have been proposed, most investigatorswould agree that a person's attitude repre-sents his evaluation of the entity in question.For purposes of the present review, only mea-sures that place the individual on a bipolarevaluative or affective dimension are consid-ered to be measures of attitude.

Behavioral criteria consist of one or moreobservable actions performed by the indivi-dual and recorded in some way by the in-vestigator. Behavioral acts include attendinga meeting, using birth control pills, buying aproduct, donating blood, and so forth. Some-times investigators have relied on "behavior-oid" measures (Aronson & Carlsmith, 1968),that is, on the individual's commitment toperform the behavior under consideration oron self-reports of behavior. Such measures aretreated below as acceptable behavioral cri-teria only when it would have been difficultor impossible to obtain a direct measure ofthe behavior in question.

Attempts to predict behavior from attitudesare largely based on a general notion of con-sistency. It is usually considered to be logicalor consistent for a person who holds a favor-able attitude toward some object to performfavorable behaviors, and not to perform un-favorable behaviors, with respect to the ob-ject.2 Similarly, a person with an unfavorableattitude is expected to perform unfavorablebehaviors, but not to perform favorable be-haviors. The apparent simplicity of this no-tion is deceptive, since there is usually notheoretical basis for the assumption that abehavior has favorable or unfavorable im-plications for the object under consideration.Obviously, many behaviors have no evalua-tive implications for a given object. Eatinghamburgers, for example, implies neither afavorable nor an unfavorable evaluation ofRussia. However, an investigator might as-sume that an unfavorable evaluation of Rus-sia is implied by the act of volunteering formilitary service and might therefore predict

a relationship between attitude toward Rus-sia and a measure of this behavior.

It can be seen that a given behavior isassumed to be consistent or inconsistent witha person's attitude on the basis of largelyintuitive considerations. In the absence of anexplicit and unambiguous definition of atti-tude-behavior consistency, therefore, manytests of the attitude-behavior relation reduceto little more than tests of the investigator'sintuition. From a theoretical point of view,such tests of the relation between arbitrarilyselected measures of attitude or behavior areof rather limited value.

The following analysis attempts to specifythe conditions under which attitudes can orcannot be expected to predict overt behavior.Our point of departure is the notion thatattitudes are held and behaviors are performedwith respect to certain entities. Two impor-tant questions in research on the attitude-behavior relation can then be identified: (a)What are the entities of the attitudinal pre-dictors and of the behavioral criteria? (b)What is the degree of correspondence betweenthe attitudinal and the behavioral entities?

Attitudinal and Behavioral Entities

Attitudinal and behavioral entities may beviewed as consisting of four different ele-ments: the action, the target at which theaction is directed, the context in which theaction is performed, and the time at which itis performed. The generality or specificity ofeach element depends on the measurementprocedure employed.

Behavioral criteria based on single observa-tions always involve four specific elements.That is, a given action is always performedwith respect to a given target, in a given con-text, and at a given point in time. Criteriabased on multiple observations of behaviorgeneralize across one or more of the fourelements. For example, when the behavioral

"Peabody's (1967) work suggests that the basisfor consistency may often be logical or denotativerather than evaluative. However, logical and evalua-tive consistency are usually confounded and thedistinction appears to be of greater theoretical thanpractical significance.

890 ICEK AJZEN AND MARTIN FISHBEIN

observations constituting the criterion measureinvolve a very heterogeneous sample of tar-gets, the target element is essentially leftunspecified. However, when the different tar-gets constitute a more homogeneous set, theircommon attributes determine the target ele-ment. When all targets are other human be-ings, for example, the target element is peoplein general; when the individuals serving astargets are of the same sex, religion, or race,then males, Jews, or Orientals might consti-tute the target element.

Similar considerations apply to the defini-tion of the action, context, and time elements.To illustrate, when a very heterogeneous sam-ple of behaviors is observed, the action ele-ment is left unspecified. Sometimes, however,the specific acts may represent a more gen-eral class of behaviors, such as cooperation,aggression, or altruism. Here, the action ele-ment is defined by the class of behaviors.3

In conclusion, the measurement proceduredetermines the behavioral entity. When thesame action is observed with respect toheterogeneous targets, in different contexts,and at different points in time, we obtain abehavioral index whose entity is defined onlyby the action element. The target serves asthe entity when heterogeneous behaviorstoward the same target are observed in dif-ferent situations and at different points intime. In a similar manner, indices can beobtained such that the contextual element,the time element, or any combination of ele-ments defines the entity for the behavioralcriterion.

As in the case of behavioral criteria, atti-tudes are also directed at entities that may bedefined by a single element or by combina-tions of two or more elements. Attitudinalpredictors frequently specify only the target.Attitudes have been measured toward thechurch, various ethnic groups, specific per-sons, and so on without reference to any par-ticular action, context, or time. However, aninvestigator can specify an entity in terms ofany combination of elements and can obtaina measure of attitude toward that entity. Forexample, an evaluative semantic differentialcould be used to measure attitudes towardtargets (Martin Luther King, Jews), toward

actions (cooking dinner, cooperating), towardcontexts (in St. Mary's Cathedral, at home),toward times (3:00 p.m. tomorrow, August),or toward any combination of elements (co-operating with Jews, cooking dinner at homeat 3:00 p.m. tomorrow).

Correspondence Between Attitudinal andBehavioral Entities

After defining entities in terms of theirelements, we can approach the question ofattitude-lpehavior correspondence. An atti-tudinal predictor is said to correspond to thebehavioral criterion to the extent that theattitudinal entity is identical in all fourelements with the behavioral entity. For ex-ample, a measure of attitude toward a targetsuch as "my church" (without specificationof action, context, or time) corresponds di-rectly only to a behavioral criterion based onthe observation of different behaviors withrespect to the person's church (e.g., donatingmoney, attending Sunday worship services,participating in church-sponsored activities,etc.), in different contexts, and at differentpoints in time. Similarly, when the attitudemeasure is an evaluation of a specific actiontoward a given target, such as the attitudetoward "donating money to my church," thecorresponding behavioral criterion is an indexof monetary donations to the person's churchbased on multiple behavioral observations indifferent contexts (e.g., at home, in the church,etc.) and on different occasions. Alternatively,when the behavioral criterion is a single act,such as the person's attendance or nonattend-ance of next Sunday's worship service in his

3 It is interesting to note that, as in the case ofattitudes, personality traits have been found to havelittle validity for the prediction of specific behaviors(Mischel, 1968; Wiggins, 1973). Personality traitssuch as dominance or authoritarianism representgeneral behavioral tendencies without reference to aspecific target, context, or time. Given the nature ofpersonality measures, it seems reasonable to suggestthat an appropriate behavioral criterion is not asingle action but rather an index based on a set ofbehaviors reflecting the trait in question; target,context, and time should be left unspecified. Datasupporting this notion have been reported by Jac-card (1974).


church at 10:00 a.m., the corresponding atti-tudinal predictor would be a measure of theperson's evaluation of "attending my church'sworship service next Sunday at 10:00 a.m."

Correspondence and the attitude-behaviorrelation. The central thesis of this article isthat the strength of an attitude-behavior rela-tionship depends in large part on the degreeof correspondence between attitudinal andbehavioral entities. Although, in theory, cor-respondence is denned in terms of all fourelements of the entities involved, for purposesof the present article, examination of the tar-get and action elements is sufficient.

Considering target and action elementsalone, two attitudinal predictors can be iden-tified that deserve special attention. The mostcommon measure specifies a given target (beit an object, a person, or an institution) with-out reference to a particular action. Thispredictor may be termed attitude toward atarget. Of less frequent use is attitude towardan action, a predictor that specifies bothaction and target elements (e.g., attitudetoward smoking marijuana).

A similar distinction can be made withreference to behavioral criteria. When thecriterion is an index based on observations ofheterogeneous behaviors with respect to agiven target, only the target element is speci-fied and the resulting measure may be calleda multiple-act criterion. When only one be-havior toward a given target is observed, bothtarget and action elements are specified andwe obtain a single-act criterion.

The above discussion suggests that atti-tudes toward targets will predict multiple-actcriteria, provided that the attitudinal andbehavioral entities involve the same targetelements. Similarly, attitudes toward actionsare expected to predict single-act criteria ifthe target and action elements of the atti-tudinal entity are identical with those of thebehavioral entity (cf. Fishbein & Ajzen,1974, 197S).

Generally speaking, high attitude-behaviorcorrelations cannot be expected in the ab-sence of correspondence between attitudinaland behavioral entities. Lack of correspon-dence, however, does not necessarily precludea relationship between attitude and behavior.

Whenever the single-act criterion involves anaction that is little more than an evaluationof the target, it should be predictable from ameasure of attitude toward the target inquestion.

The relatively frequent use of petitionsigning or voting as measures of behaviordeserves attention in this context. Both ofthese behaviors constitute single-act criteriathat specify the target element as well asthe action element. Under most circum-stances, however, the act of signing a peti-tion or voting for a given candidate involveslittle more than expressing an evaluation ofthe target in question. For example, when aperson signs or refuses to sign a petition sup-porting the legalization of marijuana, the actitself involves little more than the expressionof a favorable or unfavorable attitude withrespect to the issue. Viewed in this light, ameasure of attitude toward the target (legali-zation of marijuana) should permit satis-factory prediction of the petition-signing be-havior.

Similarly, in the United States, the act ofvoting for a given candidate or issue reflectsin large part the voter's evaluation of thecandidate or issue under consideration. Ameasure of attitude toward the candidate orissue would therefore be expected to correlatehighly with voting behavior.

Considerations of this kind may also applyto other single-act criteria. That is, a specificact may sometimes have relatively directevaluative implications for a given target. Aprocedure for determining such evaluativeimplications of single-act criteria was dis-cussed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1974). How-ever, even when it can be shown that anaction has evaluative implications for thetarget, the most appropriate predictor of thesingle-act criterion is the attitude toward theaction rather than the attitude toward thetarget.

The review of empirical research belowdeals with studies that provide evidence con-cerning the relation between an evaluativemeasure of attitude and some behavioral cri-terion—whether or not these studies weredesigned to examine the attitude-behavior


relation.4 Studies with inappropriate mea-sures of either the attitudinal predictor or thebehavioral criterion are included if they weredesigned to be explicit tests of the relationbetween attitude and behavior.

Our review is structured in terms of cor-respondence with respect to target and actionelements. Although it is possible to considerdegrees of correspondence in each element, forthe sake of simplicity we have chosen toclassify attitudes and behaviors as either cor-responding or not corresponding in their tar-gets and actions. For each study reviewed, weidentify the target and action elements of theattitudinal and behavioral entities. When thetwo targets are identical, the attitudinal pre-dictor and behavioral criterion are classifiedas corresponding in their target elements. Asimilar judgment is made with respect to theaction elements. In accordance with our pre-vious discussion, if a single-act criterion in-volves signing a petition or voting, the actionelement of the behavioral entity is viewed asunspecified.

Research on Attitude-Behavior Relations

Studies that provide data on the relationbetween attitude and behavior fall into sev-eral categories. One category contains studiesin which neither the target nor the actionelement of the attitudinal entity correspondsto the target or action element of the behav-ioral entity. Our analysis suggests that stud-ies of this kind should obtain very low atti-tude-behavior relations. Other studies cor-respond in one of the two elements but not inthe other. Our analysis indicates that theresults of such studies are likely to be in-consistent and that the obtained relationsbetween attitude and behavior will generallybe quite low. It appears that investigatorshave questioned the predictive utility of atti-tude measures primarily on the basis of stud-ies in these two categories. However, we shallsee that results are quite consistent, and sig-nificant relations between attitudes and be-havior are usually obtained when there iscorrespondence with respect to both the tar-get and the action elements.

Lack of Correspondence

Many studies concerning the attitude-be-havior issue have obtained measures with lit-tle or no correspondence between the ele-ments of the attitudinal and behavioral enti-ties. Usually, attitudes are measured toward aclass of people in general without reference toany particular action. The behavioral cri-teria, however, consist of specific acts withrespect to, or in the presence of, one or moreparticular members of the class of peoplethat serves as the target of the attitude.

A good example is the study by Himelsteinand Moore (1963). Subjects in this studywere 100 white male undergraduates who hadvolunteered for a psychological experiment.Prior to the experiment, the subjects com-pleted a 9-item scale measuring attitudestoward blacks, which had been adapted fromthe F scale. The sample of subjects wasdichotomized at the median attitude score.Upon reporting for the experiment, the sub-ject found another student, either black orwhite, already seated in the room. Actually,this student was an experimental assistant.While they were waiting for the experiment tobegin, a (white) confederate entered the roomwith a petition in his hand. The petition con-tained a proposal to extend the library hourson Saturday until 8:00 p.m. The black orwhite assistant either signed or refused to signthe petition, and following this manipulation,the subject was requested to sign.0 The sub-ject's compliance or lack of compliance withthe assistant's response served as the behav-ioral criterion. A secondary analysis of thedata revealed a nonsignificant phi coefficientof .06 between attitudes toward blacks andcompliance with the black confederate.

Using the Asch (1951) and M. Sherif(1935) procedures, several other studies have

*We tried to identify all relevant studies, butthere are obviously some that we have overlooked.Furthermore, because of the increased interest inthe attitude-behavior relation, several new studieswill have appeared by the time this review is pub-lished.

6 Note that this behavior might serve as an indica-tion of the subject's attitude toward "extendinglibrary hours on Saturday until 8:00 p.m.," but notas an indication of attitude toward blacks.


also attempted to predict conformity withspecific members of racial or ethnic groups onthe basis of attitudes toward those groups ingeneral (Berg, 1966; Boyanowski & Allen,1973; Bray, 19SO; Malof & Lott, 1962; F.W. Schneider, 1970). In addition, attitudestoward blacks have been used to predictconditioning in the Taffel (1955) procedureby means of a black or white experimenter(Smith & Dixon, 1968); inviting black orwhite confederates for coffee (Rokeach &Mezei, 1966); signing releases for photo-graphs to be taken with specific black indi-viduals (Tarter, 1969); sending messages toa black confederate and rejecting that confed-erate from the group (Burnstein & McRae,1962); and performing each of 21 differentbehaviors toward black group members whileworking on a variety of tasks in racially mixedgroups (Katz & Benjamin, I960)." Like Him-elstein and Moore (1963), virtually all ofthese studies have reported nonsignificantrelations between attitude and behavior. Oneexception was the investigation by Burnsteinand McRae (1962), who found that attitudestoward blacks in general had a significanteffect on the proportion of messages sent to aspecific black confederate in a communica-tion network. Using Friedman's (1968) tablefor the rapid estimation of the magnitude ofan experimental effect (f,H), the correlationbetween attitude and behavior in this studyis found to be relatively low (r^—.30).Furthermore, the attitude toward blacks hadno significant effect on rejection of the blackconfederate from the group.

Lack of correspondence between attitudi-nal and behavioral entities can also be foundin several studies that measured attitudestoward targets other than racial or ethnicgroups. Zunich (1961), like Katz and Benja-min, obtained a number of behavioral cri-teria. Specifically, he observed the extent towhich mothers engaged in each of 17 differentbehaviors with respect to their children. Inaddition, attitudes toward 16 different child-rearing practices (e.g., breaking a child's will,egalitarianism) were measured. Althoughthere may have been limited correspondencein the action elements of some attitudinaland behavioral entities, the attitudinal target

element (children in general) clearly did notcorrespond to the behavioral target element(the mother's own child). Schwartz and Tes-sler (1972) assessed women's attitudestoward "reducing transplant activities" andrecorded their willingness to "join a pool ofpotential bone marrow donors." Dean (1958)attempted to predict union members' attend-ance at regular local union meetings on thebasis of the members' attitudes toward laborunions in general and their liking for theirjobs. C. W. Sherif, Kelly, Rodgers, Sarup,and Tittler (1973, Study 5) assessed atti-tudes toward personal adjustment, blackrights, and achievement in education andattempted to predict attendance at a groupdiscussion dealing with one of these issues.Finally, Genthner and Taylor (1973) mea-sured attitudes toward desegregation and usedthe average intensity of electric shocks ad-ministered to a black confederate as theirbehavioral criterion. Once again, in none ofthese studies were attitudes found to makesignificant contributions to the prediction ofbehavior.

Although the study by Kutner, Wilkins,and Yarrow (1952) has usually been con-sidered as a test of the relation between atti-tude and behavior, from our point of view itfailed to obtain an adequate measure of atti-tude. These investigators recorded whetherreservations for a racially mixed group wereaccepted over the telephone by 11 differentrestaurants. Prior to the requests for reserva-tions, all 11 restaurants had allowed a blackwoman to join two white women alreadyseated at a table. It can be seen that no mea-sure of attitude was obtained. On the twooccasions the investigators assessed two dif-ferent behaviors: accepting or refusing toaccept a reservation for a racially mixedgroup and admitting or refusing to admit ablack woman. No relation between these twobehaviors was found. Although all of the

a Had Katz and Benjamin constructed a multiple-act criterion on the basis of their 21 behaviors, thebehavioral action element would have been unspeci-fied and would thus have corresponded to the atti-tudinal action element. Even so, their measures ofattitude and behavior would still have lacked cor-respondence in terms of the target elements.


restaurants admitted the black woman, noneof the restaurants accepted the reservation.An analysis of the entities of the two be-haviors revealed that there was no corre-spondence between their target elements orbetween their action elements. In one casethe target was a racially mixed group, andthe action element consisted of accepting areservation. The second behavior involved aspecific target person (the black woman) anda different action element (admittance to arestaurant). Although this study had littleto do with the attitude-behavior relation, itsnegative results are hardly surprising.

Conclusion

This section reviewed 17 studies in whichthe target and action elements of the atti-tudinal entity failed to correspond to thetarget and action elements of the behavioralentity. Only one conclusion can be reachedin light of this research: Attitude-behaviorrelations under lack of correspondence arelow and not significant.

Partial Correspondence

Whereas the previous section dealt withthe effects of complete lack of correspondence,the studies reviewed below employed mea-sures of attitude and behavior that corre-sponded in one of the two major elements ofthe attitudinal and behavioral entities. Ouranalysis of correspondence between entitiessuggests that under conditions of partialcorrespondence, relations between attitudeand behavior will tend to be inconsistent, andeven where they are significant, they shouldnormally be quite low. In most investigationsinvolving partial correspondence, we findcorrespondence between target elements butlittle correspondence between action elements.First, however, we examine several studiesin which the opposite is true, that is, inwhich the action elements corresponded butin which there was little correspondencebetween the target elements.

Lack of Correspondence between TargetElements

Ten investigations, dealing with a varietyof different targets and actions, were found

to fall into this category. Seven of thesestudies lacked correspondence in the targetelements because the attitudinal predictorsinvolved unspecified or general targets,whereas the behaviors were observed withrespect to very specific targets.

For example, Corey (1937) measured stu-dents' attitudes toward cheating and at-tempted to predict actual cheating on a givenset of tests. Over a period of 5 weeks, Corey'sstudents took five true-false examinations.Each week's test papers were returned un-marked after the students' scores had beenrecorded. The students then graded their ownpapers during the following class session.The difference between the true score and thescore each student reported for himself, sum-med over the five tests, constituted the pri-mary behavioral criterion. A second indexwas derived by computing the ratio of thisactual cheating score over the maximal cheat-ing score (the difference between the truescore and the best possible score on each test).

It can be seen that the attitudinal andbehavioral entities in this study correspondedin terms of their action elements, in that bothdealt with cheating. However, the attitudinaltarget element did not correspond closely tothe behavioral target element. The formerrefers to cheating in general, whereas thelatter concerns cheating on a given set oftests. That this distinction is important canbe seen by examining the results. The atti-tude score did not correlate significantlywith either of the two behavioral criteria(rs — .024 and .13, respectively). By way ofcomparison, the author reported that themaximal cheating score (representing anindex of "temptation") correlated signifi-cantly (r — .46) with actual cheating. Thatis, students were likely to cheat on a test ifcheating on that test was potentially usefulor desirable, irrespective of their attitudestoward cheating in general.

Nonsignificant correlations between atti-tudes toward cheating in college and actualcheating on specific examinations were alsoreported by Freeman and Ataov (1960).

Sample and Warland (1973) and Warlandand Sample (1973) measured attitudes to-ward participating in student governmentamong undergraduates enrolled in social sci-


ence classes. A IS-item Likert scale developedby Tittle and Hill (1967) was used. The be-havioral criterion, based on voting record, waswhether or not a subject had voted (i.e., par-ticipated) in a given student election (a muchmore specific target than student govern-ment). Although the attitude-behavior corre-lations in the two studies were significant,they were of relatively low magnitude (rs =.29 and .26).

The other studies in this group assessedbeliefs (Bickman, 1972) or intentions (La-Piere, 1934; McGrew, 1967) instead of ob-taining measures of attitude, as defined inthis article. All three reported nonsignificantrelations with behavior.

Undoubtedly the best known of thesestudies is LaPiere's investigation of racialprejudice. In the early 1930s, LaPiere ac-companied a young Chinese couple in theirtravels through the United States. Callingupon 251 restaurants, hotels, and otherestablishments, they were refused service onlyonce. About 6 months later, LaPiere sent aletter to each establishment visited, askingthe same question: "Will you accept membersof the Chinese race as guests in your estab-lishment?" Of the 128 establishments thatreplied, over 90% answered, "No."

Clearly, the letter-questionnaire in thisstudy was not a measure of evaluation. It canbest be described as a measure of behavioralintention, or perhaps of behavioral commit-ment. Disregarding this problem, we can seethat the entities of the two measures corre-sponded only in part. Whereas the actionelement in both measures involved acceptingsomeone in an establishment, the target ele-ments differed. The overt behavior wasdirected at a specific Chinese couple (usuallyaccompanied by LaPiere). The letter, how-ever, referred more generally to "members ofthe Chinese race." 7

The final three studies used measures ofattitudes toward targets to predict criteriawith unspecified action elements. Attitudinaland behavioral entities thus correspondedin their action elements, but unfortunately,they involved different target elements.

Fendrich (1967b) measured attitudes to-ward blacks by means of two instruments:a 32-item Likert scale and a 10-item be-

havioral intention scale. The behavioral cri-terion was a 4-item Guttman scale of activ-ities with respect to members of the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of ColoredPeople (NAACP), ranging from refusing toparticipate in a group discussion sponsoredby the NAACP to signing up for variouscivil rights activities with members of theNAACP. In a second study, Fendrich(1967a) used only the Likert scale to mea-sure attitudes toward black students andadded one item to the behavioral scale. Sincethe behavioral criterion in both studiesgeneralized across a variety of specific actions,it may be viewed as having an unspecifiedaction element that corresponded to that ofthe attitudinal predictor. However, the be-havioral target element involved members ofthe NAACP, whereas attitudes were mea-sured toward black students in general.

Secondary analyses of the data resultedin significant correlations between attitudesand behavior. In the first study, the twoscales correlated .49 and .38 with the criter-ion, and in the second study the correlationwas .30."

7 For a discussion of other problems in the La-Piere study, see Ajzen, Darroch, Fishbein, and Hor-nik (1970) and Dillehay (1973).

8 The secondary analyses were performed in orderto enable comparisons of the results in the twostudies. The data from the two conditions in thefirst study were combined for these analyses. That is,Fendrich (1967b) administered the two attitudescales in counterbalanced order, and order of ad-ministration was found to have a strong effect onthe attitude-behavior relation. When the Likertscale was administered before the intention scale,neither measure predicted the behavior significantly(7s = .12 and .18, respectively). However, whenthe scales were administered in the reverse order,the gamma coefficients were .69 for the Likert scaleand .72 for the intention scale, both significant.Fendrich argued that a typical attitude measure,such as his Likert scale, elicits role playing, whereasthe intention scale involves commitment to actualbehavior. However, the intention scale also failedto predict behavior when it was preceded by theLikert scale. Furthermore, after dichotomizing thevariables, a secondary analysis revealed an overallgamma of 1.0 for the Likert scale, which compareswith a gamma of .71 in the second study (Fend-rich, 1967a). Finally, we shall see below that ap-propriate measures of attitude can predict behavior,even when they involve no explicit behavioral com-mitment.


Finally, DeFriese and Ford (1968, 1969)also measured attitudes toward "Negroes ingeneral." Their behavioral criterion was theact of signing a petition for or against inte-grated housing. As noted in the introduction,this behavior may be viewed as an evaluationof the issue in question, and it may thus beargued that the behavioral entity, like theattitudinal entity, had no specific actionelement. However, the target elements (blacksversus integrated housing) were quite dif-ferent. A secondary analysis of the data wasperformed by assigning a score of 1, 2, or 3to subjects who signed the petition againstintegrated housing, neither petition, or thepetition in favor of integrated housing, re-spectively. These scores were correlated withthe attitude scores, yielding a correlationcoefficient of .39 (p < .01).

To summarize briefly, the studies reviewedabove obtained measures that correspondedin their action elements but not in theirtarget elements. Five of these studies reportednonsignificant relations and five studiesreported relatively low but significantattitude-behavior relations.

Lack of Correspondence between ActionElements

Individuals as targets. Most studies exhibit-ing lack of correspondence between actionelements have measured attitudes toward aperson and have attempted to predict specificbehaviors with respect to, or in the presenceof, that person. Various types of persons haveserved as the targets of the attitudinal andbehavioral entities, including opponents inexperimental games, interviewers, the experi-menter, confederates of the experimenter,and simulated or fictitious persons. Theactions directed at these target persons haveincluded cooperation and competition (Gar-din, Kaplan, Firestone, & Cowan, 1973;Krauss, 1966; Oskamp & Perlman, 1966;Tornatzky & Geiwitz, 1968); imitation,modeling, and conformity (Baron, 1970;Greenberg & Frisch, 1972; Hendrick & Tay-lor, 1971; Sampson & Insko, 1964; Staple-ton, Nacci, & Tedeschi, 1973); prosocial orhelping behavior (Baron, 1971; Epstein &Hornstein, 1969; Goodstadt, 1971; Nemeth,

1970; Regan, 1971; Schopler & Thompson,1968); and verbal and nonverbal communica-tion (Byrne, Baskett, & Hodges, 1971;Byrne, Ervin, & Lamberth, 1970; Ehrlich &Graeven, 1971; Goldberg, Kiesler, & Collins,1969; Goldberg & Mettee, 1969; S. Rosen,Johnson, Johnson, & Tesser, 1973; Sapolsky,1960; Worthy, Gary, & Kahn, 1969).

Since in all of these studies the measuresof attitude made no reference to any partic-ular behavior, the attitudinal and behavioralentities corresponded only in terms of theirtarget elements but not in terms of theiraction elements. These studies, perhaps morethan any other category of research, illustratethe inconsistent and disappointingly low rela-tions between attitude and behavior.

Consider, for example, three studies oncooperation and competition in the Prisoner'sDilemma. Gardin, Kaplan, Firestone, andCowan (1973) asked male undergraduatesto play SO trials of a Prisoner's Dilemmagame. The number of cooperative moves byeach subject served as one behavioral criter-ion. After the game, the subjects were askedto be seated around a table with eight un-occupied chairs. Each subject's physical dis-tance from the other participant was recorded;this measure may be viewed as a second be-havioral criterion. While seated at the table,the subjects completed a questionnaire thatincluded two measures of attitude toward theother person. Correlations were computed be-tween the two attitude measures and the twobehavioral criteria. All four attitude-behaviorcorrelations were below .20 and nonsignificant.

Tornatzky and Geiwitz (1968) were some-what more successful in their attempt to pre-dict the behavior of male college students inthe Prisoner's Dilemma game. These investi-gators used Byrne's (1961) similarity manip-ulation to create favorable or unfavorableattitudes toward the partner in the game.

A manipulation check indicated that thedesired difference in attitudes had been estab-lished. The subjects then played the game for18 trials. Tornatzky and Geiwitz found thatplayers in the high-similarity condition madesignificantly more cooperative choices thandid subjects in the low-similarity condition.

Note that the significant relation reportedwas between similarity and cooperation, not


between attitude and cooperation.9 UsingFriedman's (1968) table, the magnitude ofthis effect is estimated to be .25. That is, evenassuming that similarity can be equated withattitude, the correlation between attitude andbehavior is relatively low.

To further confound the relation betweenattitudes toward a target person and coop-eration with that person in Prisoner'sDilemma games, Oskamp and Perlman(1966) reported a significant linear relationfor one sample of subjects and a significantcurvilinear relation for another. The malecollege students in this study played 30 trialsof a Prisoner's Dilemma game against eithertheir best friends, acquaintances, strangers,or disliked persons. A 7-point posttest mea-sure of liking for the other player was tri-chotomized. One group of subjects wassampled at Pomona College, the other atClaremont Men's College. Cooperation in-creased with liking only at Pomona College.At Claremont, the most cooperation wasexhibited by players with neutral attitudestoward their partners, and the least coopera-tion by players with the most favorableattitudes.

The three studies reviewed illustrate theinconclusive findings obtained when measuresof attitude toward a specific target individual(without reference to any particular action)are used to predict a specific behavior withrespect to the target person. In fact, of the23 studies cited above, 8 reported nonsig-nificant attitude-behavior relations (Ehrlich& Graeven, 1971; Gardin et al., 1973; Gold-berg et al., 1969; Goldberg & Mettee, 1969;Goodstadt, 1971; Hendrick & Taylor, 1971;Nemeth, 1970; Stapleton et al., 1973), 5reported significant attitude-behavior rela-tions of low to moderate magnitude (Byrneet al., 1970; Greenberg & Frisch, 1972;Krauss, 1966; Tornatzky & Geiwitz, 1968;Worthy et al., 1969), and 10 studies obtainedinconsistent findings across different condi-tions of a given experiment (Baron, 1970,1971; Byrne et al., 1971; Epstein & Horn-stein, 1969; Oskamp & Perlman, 1966;Regan, 1971; S. Rosen et al., 1973; Sampson& Insko, 1964; Sapolsky, 1960; Schopler &Thompson, 1968). Examination of the pat-tern of results reveals no systematic effects

due to either the kind of individual servingas the target, the type of action considered,or the specific measurement proceduresemployed.

Organizations and institutions as targets.Lack of correspondence between action ele-ments can also be found in studies that haveattempted to predict specific behaviors to-ward such targets as the church, public hous-ing, and the person's job or company, fromattitudes toward these targets.

For example, numerous studies have beenconducted in attempts to predict absenteeism,turnover, tardiness, productivity, and otherwork-related behaviors from various measuresof job satisfaction or morale (e.g., Bernberg,19S2; Cherrington, Reitz, & Scott, 1971;Waters & Roach, 1971; Weitz & Nuckols,1953). Since several reviews of this literatureare available (e.g., Brayfield & Crockett,1955; Porter & Steers, 1973; Schwab &Cummings, 1970; Vroom, 1964), no attemptis made to discuss studies of this kind indetail, here or in subsequent sections. It issufficient to note that the studies cited above,as well as most other attempts to predictspecific work-related actions from generalmeasures of job satisfaction and morale, havemet with little success.

Other studies concerned with work pro-ductivity have measured attitudes towardwork in general (Friedlander & Greenberg,1971), toward groups or training programs(Sagi, Olmsted, & Atelsek, 1955; Webb &Hollander, 1956), and toward effort on thejob (Graen, 1969), in attempts to predictspecific work-related behaviors. Studies ofthis kind have also provided little evidencefor a systematic relation between attitude andbehavior.

Lack of correspondence in action elementsled to inconsistent findings in a study byOstrom (1969). Students' attitudes toward

9 Although similarity was shown to have a signifi-cant effect on attitudes, the study does not providedirect evidence for a link between attitudes andbehavior. Studies of this kind are reviewed hereonly because the sole purpose of the similaritymanipulation was to create different degrees ofattraction. Nevertheless, as far as the attitude-be-havior relation is concerned, results of such studiesmust be treated with caution.


the church were measured by means of 12attitude scales (3 Thurstone scales, 3 Gutt-man scales, 3 Likert scales, and 3 self-ratingscales).10 Seven self-reports of behavior wereelicited, including attendance of church serv-ices, time spent in church-related activities,and meditation outside formal church services.In addition, subjects could leave their namesand addresses if they were interested in at-tending a discussion of the results of thisresearch project and its contribution to thechurch in modem society. Thus, the criteriain this study were seven self-reported be-haviors and one behavioral commitment. Atotal of 96 attitude-behavior correlations (12attitude scales X 8 behavioral criteria) werecomputed. Of these correlations, 37 (39%)were below .15 and not significant. The re-maining correlations, although significant,were also very low. Only for self-reports ofchurch attendance did the attitude-behaviorcorrelations exceed .40.

Finally, rather than measuring attitudes,Bellin and Kriesberg (1967) assessed severalspecific beliefs about public housing andfound them to be unrelated to whether ornot the respondents actually applied forpublic housing in the course of a 3-yearperiod.

Blacks as targets. In contrast with some ofthe research reviewed under Lack oj Corre-spondence, a few studies have measuredattitudes toward blacks in general and haveused criteria that involved specific actionswith respect to hypothetical representativesof this racial group (DeFleur & Westie, 1958;Green, 1972; Linn, 1965; Warner & DeFleur,1969; Warner & Dennis, 1970). Attitudinaland behavioral entities thus corresponded intheir target elements (blacks) but not in theiraction elements. Although the criteria in thesestudies were intentions instead of behaviors,they are reviewed here because they wereexplicitly designed to test the attitude-behavior relation.

The best known of these investigations wasthe study by DeFleur and Westie (1958),which measured attitudes toward blacks andused as its criterion a behavioroid measureinvolving signed agreements to be photo-graphed with a black person of the oppositesex.11 Subjects could allow the photograph to

be used for seven different purposes, rangingfrom use in "laboratory experiments whereit will be seen only by professional sociol-ogists" to use in a "nation-wide publicitycampaign advocating racial integration." Bypermitting the subject to sign any, all, ornone of the release agreements, this measureresulted in an 8-point behavioral index. Al-though DeFleur and Westie concluded thattheir data revealed a great deal of inconsist-ency between attitudes and behavior, theiranalysis showed a statistically significantassociation (x~ = 7.264, p < .01). A second-ary analysis of the data was performed toobtain an estimate of the magnitude of thisrelation. The phi coefficient was found to be.40, suggesting a correlation of moderate size.

In a similar study, Green (1972) mea-sured subjects' willingness to be photographedwith blacks in a variety of situations andfound a significant relation of comparablemagnitude (rm = .40) between this criterionand attitudes toward blacks.

Linn (1965) used a measure of attitudetoward blacks as well as a measure of willing-ness to be photographed with blacks to pre-dict signing releases for interracial photo-graphs. Although Linn reported no significantrelations, a secondary analysis showed thatthe attitude measure had a correlation of .29(ns), whereas the commitment scale corre-lated .39 (p < .05) with the criterion.

Significant but relatively low attitude-behavior relations were also reported byWarner and DeFleur (1969) and Warner andDennis (1970). Warner and DeFleur mea-sured attitudes toward blacks by means of a16-item Likert scale. The sample of 537college students was divided at the medianattitude score. The behavioroid criterion waseach subject's signed indication of willingnessor refusal to perform a given behavior withrespect to blacks. These commitments wereelicited by means of a letter sent to eachsubject. Although a given subject received

10 One of the self-rating scales could be viewed asa self-report of behavior, rather than as a measureof attitude.

11 Strictly speaking, the target of this behavior wasblacks of the opposite sex, whereas the attitudinaltarget was blacks in general.


only one letter dealing with a single behavior,a total of eight behaviors were used for dif-ferent subjects. These behaviors ranged from"making an anonymous contribution to aNegro educational charity" to "dating aNegro."

Although data for single behaviors werenot made available, the authors reported thenumber of students who failed to return theletter, as well as the number of students whoreturned signed agreements or signed refusalsto perform one of the eight behaviors. A sec-ondary analysis of these data resulted in asignificant index of association (x2 = 8.68,p < .05). A phi coefficient of .13 indicatesthat the relation between attitude and be-havior was of very low magnitude. Note,however, that most subjects did not replyto the letter. When only the subjects whoreplied are considered, the phi coefficient isfound to be .26—somewhat higher but stillnot very impressive.

As part of the same study, attitudes towardblacks were also measured by means of an8-item Guttman scale (see Warner & Dennis,1970). These attitude scores, dichotomizedat the median, correlated .27 with the abovecriterion when only subjects who repliedwere considered.

The five studies reviewed in this sectionall found relatively low but significant rela-tions between attitude and behavior. Thesefindings contrast with the generally nonsig-nificant relations reported by other studieswhose attitudinal and behavioral entitiesfailed to correspond in their action elements.One possible explanation is that the studiesreviewed above all used more than a singleresponse to construct their criteria. In thestudies by DeFleur and Westie, Green, andLinn, subjects could sign a number of differ-ent release agreements. Subjects in theWarner and DeFleur and Warner and Dennisstudies could volunteer for only one activity,but the activities varied for different subjects.Behavioral criteria of this kind tend to pro-vide some degree of generality with respect tothe action element, thus leading to somewhatgreater correspondence with the action-freeattitudinal predictor. In addition, it mustbe recalled that all five studies used be-havioral commitments as their criteria. It is

possible that actual behavior (e.g., actuallyposing for a photograph and releasing it)would show a lower or nonsignificant relationto attitude.

Conclusion

The studies reviewed above reported rela-tions between attitudes and behavioral cri-teria whose entities corresponded only in oneof their two major elements. Ten investiga-tions used measures that corresponded onlyin terms of their action elements, but themajority of studies (37) corresponded intheir target elements and failed to providefor correspondence in their action elements.Our analysis of the nature of attitude-behavior relations suggests that partial corre-spondence between attitudinal and behavioralentities cannot be expected to yield consis-tently high relationships. The review ofempirical research above supports this con-tention. Forty-seven studies conducted underpartial correspondence were reviewed. Ofthese studies, 17 reported nonsignificant rela-tions, IS reported significant relations of lowto moderate magnitude, and the remaining ISstudies obtained inconsistent results.

High Correspondence

The research reviewed in this section per-mits us to compare the low and inconclusiveattitude-behavior relations found under lackof correspondence and partial correspond-ence with attitude-behavior relations underhigh correspondence. Some studies have ex-amined relations between attitudes towardbehaviors and single-act criteria. Others havemeasured attitudes toward targets in anattempt to predict multiple-act criteria. Theremaining studies have investigated the rela-tion between attitudes toward candidates orissues and voting or signing a petition for oragainst the candidate or issue. As noted inthe introduction, the acts of voting or signinga petition are viewed as behavioral criteriawith unspecified action elements. They shouldtherefore be related to attitudes toward thetargets in question.

Our analysis suggests that high corre-spondence between attitudinal and behavioral


entities will result in strong relations, pro-vided that the investigator has in fact ob-tained measures of attitudes and behaviors,as denned in this article. The first group ofstudies reviewed below not only demonstratehigh correspondence between attitudinal andbehavioral entities but also appear to haveemployed appropriate measures of attitudesand behaviors. These studies should revealhigh attitude-behavior relations. The secondgroup of studies reviewed in this section usedpredictor or criterion measures that, from ourpoint of view, may be problematic. Inappro-priate measures of this kind tend to attenuatethe attitude-behavior relations.

Appropriate Measures

Attitudes toward behaviors and single-actcriteria. An example of a study conformingto our requirements is Veevers' (1971) in-vestigation of drinking behavior, in whichattitudes toward a behavior were used topredict a single-act criterion. Residents oftwo Alberta communities reported the fre-quency of their drinking, and the amountand kind of alcoholic beverages consumed.On the basis of these self-reports, 25 heavydrinkers, 25 light drinkers, and 25 abstainerswere identified. Each respondent also com-pleted five instruments measuring attitudestoward drinking alcoholic beverages. Gammacoefficients were computed to assess thedegree of relationship between each attitudemeasure and the self-reported behavior. Thefive attitude measures were all significantlyrelated to the behavioral criterion, the co-efficients ranging from .46 to .72.

Strong relations between attitudes towardactions and single-act criteria were also re-ported by Janis and Hoffman (1970), Koth-andapani (1971), and Nisbett (1968).Kothandapani investigated birth control prac-tices among 452 married black women. Atti-tudes toward personal use of birth controlmethods were measured by means of 12 atti-tude scales: 3 Thurstone scales, 3 Guttmanscales, 3 Likert scales, and 3 self-rating scales.The criterion was the self-reported use ornonuse of birth control methods. All 12 atti-tude-behavior correlations were significantand generally quite high. One correlation was

.36, and the remaining correlations rangedfrom .54 to .82. The average correlation, aftertransformation to Fisher's Z, was .69.

Although Janis and Hoffman (1970) andNisbett (1968) failed to report coefficientsof association, examination of their dataagain reveals strong attitude-behavior rela-tions. Six months after participation in aprogram to reduce smoking, Janis and Hoff-man's subjects whose attitudes toward cig-arette smoking were above the median, re-ported smoking 29 cigarettes per day, whereassubjects with attitudes below the mediansmoked only 9.4 cigarettes per day. Nisbettprovided data concerning the relation betweenattitudes toward the ice cream that subjectshad just eaten and the amount that they hadeaten. A secondary analysis of the plotteddata revealed .a correlation coefficient ofabout .80 for the total sample of 168 collegestudents.

Attitudes toward targets and multiple-actcriteria. Studies measuring attitudes towardtargets and multiple-act criteria have alsoobtained strong attitude-behavior relations.For example, Bandura, Blanchard, and Rit-ter (1969) obtained two measures of attitudetoward snakes. The avoidance behavior of 48male and female subjects was then recordedwith respect to a 29-item graded Guttman-type scale involving various interactions witha snake. These interactions ranged from "ap-proaching the snake in an enclosed glass cage"to "passively permitting the snake to crawlin one's lap." Following the behavior, atti-tudes were reassessed. Both attitude mea-sures were found to predict the criterion witha high degree of accuracy. When administeredprior to the behavior, the two attitude scalescorrelated .73 and .56 with the criterion, re-spectively. Measured after the behavior, thecorresponding correlations were .87 and .70.

Similar results were found by Potter andKlein (1957), with respect to the relationbetween maternal attitudes and behavior, andby Goodmonson and Glaudin (1971), in astudy dealing with posthumous organ trans-plants.

Voting behavior. Political scientists study-ing the electoral process have collected ex-tensive data on the determinants of voting


behavior. Although much of this work hasdealt with determinants other than attitude,evidence concerning the relationship betweenattitude and voting behavior has also beenreported. A complete review of this litera-ture is beyond the scope of the present paper.The following discussion examines severalstudies that have made an explicit attempt toinvestigate the relationship between attitudesand voting behavior. Since, as noted in theintroduction, attitude toward a candidate andvoting for or against that candidate may beviewed as corresponding in both target andaction elements, we would expect high atti-tude-behavior correlations.

In a widely cited series of surveys, A.Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes(1960) obtained sizable correlations betweenattitudes toward candidates and voting be-havior in the 1952 and 19S6 presidentialelections. Using a free-response format, re-spondents of voting age indicated what theyliked and what they disliked about each partyand about each candidate (Eisenhower &Stevenson). References to the candidates werescored as favorable or unfavorable, andsummed. This measure of attitude towardeach candidate correlated significantly withself-reported voting. For example, in the 1956election, attitude toward Eisenhower had acorrelation of .52 with voting choice. A de-tailed analysis of the attitude-behavior rela-tions can be found in A. Campbell and Stokes(1959). Using a similar measure of attitude,Repass (1971) reported a correlation of .60with voting for Johnson or Goldwater in the1964 campaign.

Strong attitude-behavior correlations werealso reported by Fishbein and Coombs(1974), who used attitudes toward Johnsonand Goldwater to predict voting in the 1964presidential election. Two measures of atti-tude were obtained, a 5-item evaluative se-mantic differential and a more indirect 24-item scale based on Fishbein's (1963) sum-mation theory of attitude. The two measuresof attitude toward Goldwater correlated .70and .73 with voting, respectively. Attitudestoward Johnson provided correlations of .51and .72.

In a series of studies, DeFleur and his

associates attempted to predict voting for oragainst legalization of marijuana. As in thecase of voting for a candidate, the action ele-ment of this behavioroid criterion may beviewed as unspecified. Albrecht, DeFleur, andWarner (1972) measured students' attitudestoward legalization of marijuana by meansof a standard Likert scale. In one conditionof the experiment, subjects could vote for oragainst legalization of marijuana by means ofa secret ballot. In a second condition, theycould sign a petition supporting or opposinglegalization of marijuana. The two conditionswere combined, since they yielded comparableresults. A gamma coefficient of .71 attests tothe relatively high attitude-behavior relation.Similar results were reported by Frideres,Warner, and Albrecht (1971) and by Acockand DeFleur (1972).

Finally, using a somewhat different behav-ioral criterion, Kamenetsky, Burgess, andRowan (1956) also found a relatively strongattitude-behavior relation. Several measuresof attitude toward "the desirability of legis-lative measures to abolish discriminationagainst Negroes in employment matters" wereobtained, and student subjects at the Univer-sity of Illinois could sign or refuse to sign apetition "requesting Illinois congressmen togive their support to the passage of a FairEmployment Practices Act during the nextsession of congress." The attitude-behaviorcorrelations were quite high and significant,ranging from .54 to .61.

To summarize briefly, the studies reviewedabove clearly indicate that significant atti-tude^behavior relations of considerable mag-nitude can be obtained consistently by estab-lishing high correspondence between attitudi-nal and behavioral entities. A total of 14studies, judged to have used appropriate mea-sures of attitude and behavior, were reviewed.Without exception these studies found strongand significant attitude-behavior relations.

Questionable Measures

The studies reviewed above were selectedon the basis of considerations concerning thevalidity of their attitudinal and behavioralmeasures. Six other studies with apparenthigh attitude-behavior correspondence em-


ployed more questionable measures, especiallywith respect to their attitudinal predictors.They are reviewed here because they weredesigned to test the attitude-behavior relationand because they illustrate some of the diffi-culties involved in establishing high corre-spondence between attitudinal and behavioralentities.

In one of these studies, Mitchell andNebeker (1973) obtained two measures ofstudents' attitudes toward "time spent onacademic activities."12 The behavioral cri-terion was a self-report of the average numberof hours per week that each subject had spenton academic activities during the precedingquarter. Superficially, it may appear that thiscriterion corresponded both in its target ele-ment and in its action element to the atti-tudinal predictors. Although it is true thatthe target (academic activities) was thesame, there was an important difference be-tween the attitudinal and behavioral actionelements. The attitude measures asked sub-jects to evaluate "spending time [on academicactivities]," without specifying how muchtime. Subjects could obtain high attitudescores if they had favorable evaluations ofspending very little time, a moderate amountof time, or a great deal of time on academicactivities. The behavioral criterion, however,was scored in terms of amount of time ac-tually spent; the only way to obtain a highbehavioral score was to report spending manyhours per week on academic activities. Asmight be expected, the attitude-behavior cor-relations, although significant, were very low.One attitude measure had a correlation of .27with the criterion, the other measure a corre-lation of .23.

More obvious problems were encounteredin the remaining five investigations. Newtonand Newton (19SO) and Brannon, Cyphers,Hesse, Hesselbart, Keane, Schuman, Viccaro,and Wright (1973) measured intentions in-stead of attitudes. We noted earlier that in-tentions are expected to predict correspond-ing behaviors, and in fact, Brannon et al.found a strong relation between intentions tovote for an open housing law and signing apetition in support of such a law. Althoughno coefficient of association was reported,

approximately 80% of the respondents be-haved in accordance with their intentions.The study by Newton and Newton (1950),however, had an additional problem. Women'sintentions to breast-feed their babies wereused to predict the degree to which they weresuccessful in doing so. Unfortunately, allmothers were instructed to breast-feed theirbabies, whether they intended to or not, andsuccess was defined in terms of the mother'sability to provide a sufficient quantity ofmilk. Clearly, this criterion was not com-pletely under the mothers' control. Despitethis problem, a secondary analysis revealed asignificant correlation of .48 between themothers' intentions and their breast-feedingbehaviors.

Bowers (1968) used self-reports rather thanactual observations of behavior. Although wehave argued that self-reports can often sub-stitute for actual behavior, their use in thisstudy is problematic, since the 10 behaviorsin question (destroying school property, tak-ing books from the library without properlychecking them out, etc.) were socially unde-sirable and the validity of the self-reports isthus open to question. Nevertheless, a sec-ondary analysis of the data revealed signifi-cant attitude-behavior correlations rangingfrom .36 to .61.

The final two studies in this section (Ma-zen & Leventhal, 1972; Winters, 1971) en-tailed methodological problems that make itimpossible to reach any conclusions concern-ing the attitude-behavior relation. For ex-ample, Mazen and Leventhal changed atti-

12 One of these measures ostensibly followed fromexpectancy-value theory. Subjects were asked toindicate the extent to which the time they spent onacademic activities led to good grades. Evaluation ofgood grades was measured in terms of the expectedconsequences of obtaining good grades and thesubjective values of these consequences. The beliefthat time spent on academic activities led to goodgrades was multiplied with this evaluation of goodgrades. The product may be viewed as an incom-plete measure of attitude toward spending time onacademic activities. Expectancy theory would sug-gest that consequences other than obtaining goodgrades (e.g., learning about interesting issues) needto be taken into consideration when attitude towardspending time on academic activities is measured inthis fashion.


tudes by means of persuasive communica-tion, yet the correlations with subsequentbehavior that were reported involved the pre-communication attitudes rather than the post-communication attitudes.13 As might be ex-pected, the correlations were relatively low,although they did reach statistical signifi-cance in some conditions.

Conclusion

The findings of studies with high cor-respondence between attitudinal and behav-ioral entities must be judged in comparisonwith the rather low and mostly nonsignificantattitude-behavior relations obtained underconditions of partial or complete lack ofcorrespondence. When the target and actionelements of the attitudinal entity corre-sponded to the target and action elements ofthe behavioral entity, attitude-behavior cor-relations were found to be quite high and sig-nificant. This was often true, even when mea-sures of doubtful validity were employed.

Although these conclusions are clearly con-sistent with our analysis of the relations be-tween attitudes and behaviors, they were notbased on direct comparisons of the effectsproduced by variations in degree of corre-spondence. The studies reviewed in the fol-lowing section employed multiple measures ofattitudes or behaviors, and they did, inten-tionally or unintentionally, provide the dataneeded to make the appropriate comparisons.

Comparisons: Varying Degrees ofCorrespondence

The advantage of comparing attitude-behavior relations under varying degrees ofcorrespondence within a given study is thatother potentially relevant factors are heldconstant. Differences in the magnitude of therelations between attitude and behavior canthen be attributed with confidence to thedifferences in degree of correspondence.

Partial Correspondence Versus Lack ofCorrespondence

In the eight studies reviewed in this sec-tion, investigators obtained several measures

of attitude that varied in the extent to whichthey corresponded to the behavioral criterion.One or more attitude measures had no corre-spondence with the criterion, whereas the re-maining attitudes corresponded in either theaction element or the target element, but notin both.

For example, in a series of three experi-ments, Norman (197S) measured under-graduates' attitudes toward "volunteering asa subject" and toward "acting as a subject inpsychological research." The behavioral cri-terion was a measure of volunteering to par-ticipate in a given psychological experiment.It can be seen that the first measure of atti-tude corresponded to the criterion in its ac-tion element (volunteering) but not in itstarget element (psychological research ingeneral vs. the specific experiment-experi-menter combination). The second attitudemeasure failed to correspond to the criterion,not only in its target element but also in itsaction element, since acting as a subject isvery different from volunteering to be a sub-ject.

Our analysis suggests that the first atti-tude measure, which partly corresponded tothe criterion, should have yielded higher atti-tude-behavior correlations than the secondattitude measure. The results in all threestudies supported this analysis. The averagecorrelation across studies was .40 under par-tial correspondence and .21 under lack ofcorrespondence. The same pattern of resultswas obtained in another study dealing withvolunteering to participate in a psychologicalexperiment (Wicker & Pomazal, 1971), al-though the correlations obtained were oflower magnitude.

Fischer (1971) asked undergraduates toindicate on a 4-point scale their interest injoining the "College Student CompanionProgram" at Connecticut Valley Hospital.Since it was made clear to the subjects thatthey would be contacted later if they ex-pressed some interest, this scale may beviewed as a behavioroid measure involving a

is Mazen and Leventhal also reported correla-tions between attitude change and the behavioralciiteria. This analysis again provides little informa-tion about the attitude-behavior relation.


relatively low degree of commitment. Atti-tudes had been measured several weeks priorto the recruitment by means of a 68-itemLikert-type scale. A factor analysis of the 68items resulted in four subscales. Two of thesescales were related to helping (one was la-beled "helping," the other "social responsibil-ity"), and the remaining two scales mea-sured "sex progressivism" and "attitudetoward criminals."

It can be seen that the last two attitudemeasures lacked correspondence with the be-havioral criterion, both in terms of the tar-get and the action elements. The first twoattitude measures involved the same action asthe behavior (volunteering to help), but theydiffered in their target elements (the hos-pital's companion program for the behaviorvs. no specific target for the attitudes).

The two measures of attitude toward help-ing each had a correlation of .36 (p < .01)with the partially corresponding behavioralcriterion, and as would be expected, thesecorrelations were significantly higher thanthose obtained for the remaining two atti-tude measures (rs — .15 and .21). Much thesame results were reported by Hornstein,Masor, Sole, and Heilman (1971), in anotherstudy of helping behavior, and by B. Rosenand Komorita (1971), who attempted to pre-dict a behavioroid measure of commitment toattend a discussion on the "current war onpoverty." u

Carr and Roberts (196S) obtained 29 mea-sures of race-related attitudes and two self-reports of participation in civil rights activi-ties. Only two of the 29 attitude measurescorresponded at least in part to the behav-ioral criterion—one in its target element, theother in its action element. Of the 58 corre-lations between attitude and behavior, nonewere higher than .30 and about 80% of thecorrelations were below .15. Interestingly,however, most of the significant predictionswere made by the two attitude measureswhose entities corresponded in part to theentities of the two behavioral criteria.

A study by Rokeach and Kliejunas (1972)also permits comparisons between results ob-tained under partial correspondence and un-der lack of correspondence. Unfortunately,

the predictor whose action element corre-sponded to that of the criterion was not ameasure of attitude. Rokeach and Kliejunasmeasured students' attitudes toward specificinstructors in five psychology courses andtoward psychology instructors in general (byaveraging the specific ratings). In addition,they assessed the importance of attendingclass in general and treated these ratings asanother measure of attitude. From our pointof view, however, this was not an appropriatemeasure of attitude, since ratings of impor-tance are not expressions of evaluation.

If we disregard this problem, we can turnto an examination of the correspondence be-tween the predictors and the behavioral cri-teria. Subjects were asked to report, for eachcourse, the percentage of classes they had cutfor reasons other than illness or accident, ineach of the psychology courses they hadtaken. A more general measure of cuttingpsychology classes was obtained by comput-ing the average percentage. The behavioralcriteria thus involved cutting either specificpsychology classes or psychology classes ingeneral. Clearly, the attitudes toward specificinstructors and toward instructors in generalhad little or no correspondence with thesecriteria. The importance of attending class ingeneral corresponded to the criteria in termsof its action element (attending class) butnot its target element (no reference to psy-chology classes).

Consistent with this analysis, the correla-tion between attitude toward psychology in-structors and the general measure of cuttingpsychology classes (lack of correspondence)was .20 and not significant, whereas the mea-sure of importance (partial correspondence)had a significant correlation of .46 with thiscriterion. Considering each of the five coursesseparately, neither the attitude toward theinstructor of a given class nor the measure ofthe importance of attending class in general

"The B. Rosen and Komorita study entailedsome measurement problems, since of the five pre-dictors, only one was a clear measure of attitude.Despite this problem, the correlations between thepredictors and the criterion were .35, .39, and .59under partial correspondence and .03 and .08 underlack of correspondence.


was systematically related to class attendance.However, with respect to four of the five com-parisons, the partially corresponding impor-tance measure was the better predictor ofbehavior.

One final study (Brislin & Olmsted, Note1) that permits a comparison of partial cor-respondence with lack of correspondence in-volved a behavioral criterion of questionablevalidity. The criterion was the percentage ofphosphate contained in the laundry detergentused by 132 persons in a public launderette.The phosphate content was obtained from agovernment publication. Since it did not ap-pear on the boxes, it is likely that most sub-jects were unaware of the percentage of phos-phate contained in their detergents. Conse-quently, the semantic-differential measure ofattitude toward low-phosphate laundry de-tergents obtained by the investigators mustbe viewed as lacking correspondence with thebehavioral criterion in target as well as actionelements. Four other attitude measures dealtwith using low phosphate detergents. Thesemeasures corresponded to the behavior intheir action elements but again not in theirtarget elements. Attitude-behavior correla-tions were significant, but there were nosystematic differences under partial corre-spondence and lack of correspondence. Thecorrelation of the semantic differential mea-sure with behavior was .34; the remainingattitude-behavior correlations ranged from.18 to .38.

To summarize briefly, relations betweenattitudes and behaviors under partial corre-spondence tend to be somewhat stronger thanrelations under low correspondence betweenattitudinal and behavioral entities. Evenunder partial correspondence, however, therelations tend to be of low magnitude.

High Versus Partial or Low Correspondence

Of all studies concerning the attitude-be-havior relation, the investigations reviewedin this final section are most directly rele-vant to our conceptual analysis. In this sec-tion we review studies that permit a com-parison of the magnitude of attitude-behaviorrelations under high correspondence with

their magnitude under partial or low corre-spondence. High correspondence betweenattitudinal and behavioral entities should, ofcourse, produce stronger relations than shouldpartial or low correspondence. As usual, someof the studies designed to test the relationbetween attitude and behavior are difficult tointerpret, due to problems of measurement orgeneral methodology. A review of these stud-ies is followed by a discussion of studies withappropriate measures and procedures.

Questionable measures. Among the studiesthat permit comparisons between high andpartial or low correspondence, five employedmeasures of questionable validity. In twostudies (Heberlein & Black, 1976; Silverman& Cochrane, 1971) the problem relates to theattitudinal predictor; in the remaining threestudies (Bruvold, 1972b; Liska, 1974a;Mann, 1959) problematic criteria were em-ployed.

Heberlein and Black (1976) designed astudy that varied degree of correspondence,but some of their predictors were beliefsrather than attitudes. The behavioral criterionwas essentially an index of whether a persondid or did not purchase lead-free gasoline.Various predictors were used, ranging froma general attitude toward the environment,through attitudes toward air pollution andtoward lead-free gasoline, to a general com-mitment to use lead-free gasoline. Finally, asingle item was used to measure the respon-dent's felt obligation to purchase lead-freegasoline.

It can be seen that the attitudes towardthe environment and toward air pollutionlacked any correspondence with the criterion;the measures referring to lead-free gasolinecorresponded to the criterion in their targetelements but not in their action elements;and the remaining predictors, although notmeasures of attitude, corresponded highlywith the criterion. As might be expected, theprediction of behavior became more accurateas degree of correspondence increased. Thecorrelations ranged from .12 to .21 underlack of correspondence, from .36 to .39 underpartial correspondence, and from .SO to .59for high correspondence.

Stronger relations under high correspon-


dence (rs — .63 and .58) than under partialcorrespondence (rs = .38 and .26) were alsoreported by Silverman and Cochrane (1971),who used measures of intention (rather thanattitude) to predict the signing of two peti-tions dealing with open housing.

In the remaining studies, problems wererelated to the behavioral criterion rather thanto the measure of attitude. For example,Liska (1974a) obtained self-reports of eightcheating behaviors that involved receivinghelp from others during the preceding se-mester. The 183 college students who servedas subjects responded to a S-point scale (don'tremember, never, once, twice, three or moretimes) with respect to such behaviors as "gothelp on a term paper from another student"and "secured a copy of an old examination."In addition to these eight single-act criteria,a multiple-act criterion was obtained bysumming over the eight behavioral self-reports.

Two problems concerning these measuresof behavior must be noted. First, it may beinappropriate to assign the lowest behavioralscore to the "don't remember" category. Sec-ond, the use of self-reports in this situationmust again be viewed with caution, since thebehaviors in question had low social desirabil-ity.

Attitudes toward each of the eight behav-iors were measured by means of a S-pointapprove-disapprove scale.15 Attitudes towardthe target of "using others to prepare for andtake examinations" were obtained by sum-ming over the eight single scales. In addition,S-item scales were used to measure attitudestoward cheating in college, intellectualism,and honesty.

The eight attitudes toward a behavior cor-responded in both target and action to theeight single-act criteria. High correspondencealso existed between the attitude toward "us-ing others" and the multiple-act criterion. Allother combinations of attitudinal and behav-ioral measures corresponded only in part ornot at all. This analysis is supported by thedata. Under high correspondence, all atti-tude-behavior correlations were significant.For single behaviors, the correlations rangedfrom .21 to .43; the attitude toward a target

correlated .47 with the multiple-act criterion.In contrast, under partial or low correspon-dence, correlations were very low (r < .20)and mostly nonsignificant.

Bruvold (1972b) interviewed 99 residentsin an area near three recreational facilities(a golf course, a park, and a swimming pool)supplied with reclaimed water. The criterionwas whether a given facility had been usedby the respondent or members of his familywith knowledge that the facility was suppliedwith reclaimed water. In addition to thesethree single-act criteria—one for each facil-ity—Bruvold also obtained a multiple-act cri-terion by computing the sum over the threescores. Attitudes toward "reclaimed water fornoningestive, close-contact use" were mea-sured by means of a Thurstone scale.

Two problems are associated with the be-havioral criteria in this study. First, a personwas classified as performing the behavior inquestion when a member of his or her familymade use of a facility, even though the per-son did not. Second, use of a facility withoutknowledge of its water supply resulted in anegative behavioral classification, even thoughthe person might have used it in any case.

Users and nonusers of a given facility werenot found to differ significantly in their atti-tudes. These negative results would be ex-pected, since the attitudinal target (reclaimedwater) differed greatly from the behavioraltargets (the specific facilities) for the threesingle-act criteria (see also Bruvold, 1972a).The multiple-act criterion, however, corre-sponded to the attitude in its target element(nonspecific) and its action element (use ofreclaimed water). A significant linear trendwas found, indicating a significant relationbetween attitude and the corresponding be-havioral criterion. According to Friedman's(1968) table, the magnitude of this relationis about .35. Using similar measures of atti-tude and behavior, Bruvold (1973) again re-

16 This suggests a methodological problem, sincemany subjects may have had little opportunity toperform a given behavior during the precedingsemester, even if they had favorable attitudes towardthat behavior. Failure to take into account lack ofopportunity will tend to reduce the attitude-be-havior correlations.


ported a significant but low correlation (r —.30).

Finally, Mann (1959) failed to obtain anyclear measure of behavior. Black and whitesubjects interacted in six-person groups.Afterward, each subject ranked the othergroup members in terms of their degree ofracial prejudice. The subject's average rankserved as the criterion. Clearly, this measureis best viewed as an assessment of racial atti-tude based on peer ratings, not as a behavior.The patriotism subscale of the EthnocentrismScale was used as a general measure of preju-dice. In addition, attitudes toward membersof the other race were assessed by askingsubjects to rank the group member in termsof friendship choice. The average rank ofown-race members was divided by the averagerank of the other-race members. It can beseen that only the general prejudice measurecorresponded to the criterion in both its tar-get and action elements.10 Its correlation withthe criterion was relatively high ( r = . S l )and significant. The second measure of atti-tude had a lower, though still significant, re-lation to the criterion (r = .22).

In sum, although the five studies reviewedabove employed measures of attitude or be-havior that do not meet the requirements setforth in this article, the reported attitude-behavior relations were in line with expecta-tions. To be sure, the methodological diffi-culties resulted in relatively low relations,even under conditions of high correspon-dence. However, these relations were signifi-cant and consistently higher than the rela-tions obtained under low or partial corre-spondence.

Appropriate measures. The remaining sec-tion is devoted to comparisons of attitude-behavior relations under high correspondencewith relations under partial or low correspon-dence, in studies that have obtained adequatemeasures of attitudes and behaviors. The 10studies reviewed in this section all dealt ex-plicitly with the attitude-behavior relation,and they were all designed to compare cor-relations between behavior and different mea-sures of attitude or between attitude anddifferent behavioral criteria.

The first type of comparison is exemplified

by Weinstein's (1972) attempt to predictsigning a petition from three measures ofattitude. The petition read, "I ... am op-posed to the quarter system and recommendan alternative system" (p. 3S7). Attitudeswere assessed by means of a 7-item evalua-tive semantic differential. The concepts ratedwere "signing a petition protesting the quar-ter system," "the quarter system," and "sign-ing a protest petition." Ninety-four under-graduate college students served as subjects.

The target and action elements of the firstattitude corresponded to those of the behavior.The second attitude measure may also beviewed as corresponding highly to the cri-terion. Although it did not make explicitreference to signing a petition, it did representan expression of a position concerning thequarter system, and as noted earlier, signinga petition may also be considered as an ex-pression of a position on an issue. Neverthe-less, the person's attitude toward "signing apetition opposing the quarter system" is amore appropriate attitudinal predictor. Thethird attitude measure corresponded to thecriterion only in terms of its action element;its target element (protest petition) differedconsiderably from that of the behavior (apetition opposing the quarter system).

Consistent with these considerations, theattitude toward "signing a petition protestingthe quarter system" yielded the best predic-tion of behavior (r — .69), although the atti-tude toward "the quarter system" also re-sulted in a significant correlation (r = .52).The third attitude did not correlate signifi-cantly with the behavior (r = .22).

Fishbein, Thomas, and Jaccard (Note 2)compared the predictive validity of an atti-tude toward a target with an attitude towardvoting for the target. Although, as we sawearlier, high correlations between attitudestoward candidates and voting behavior areobtained under the electoral system in theUnited States (where voting for the mostpreferred candidate is a reasonable votingstrategy), this is not necessarily the case in

16 Note that the Ethnocentrism Scale is actuallya measure of personality, although it is usually foundto correlate with racial prejudice.


other democratic elections. For example, inGreat Britain, voting for the most preferredcandidate may contribute to the formation ofa government by the least preferred partyunder the leadership of a disliked primeminister. Voting for a given candidate inGreat Britain may thus be an indication ofthe person's attitude toward the party ratherthan toward the candidate. This implies thatin Great Britain, the attitude toward votingfor a given candidate would correlate morehighly with actual voting for that candidatethan would the attitude toward the candidate.

Fishbein, Thomas, and Jaccard obtainedmeasures of attitudes toward 12 candidates(3 in each of 4 constituencies) in the October1974 general election in Great Britain. Inaddition, measures of attitude toward votingfor each of the 12 candidates were obtained.Consistent with expectations, the average cor-relation between attitude toward a candidateand voting behavior was .51 ( p < . Q l ) ,whereas the average correlation between atti-tude toward voting for the candidate andvoting behavior was .85 (p < .01).

Jaccard, King, and Pomazal (Note 3) re-ported comparable findings for the predictionof three different behavioral criteria. In onestudy, 270 women indicated their attitudestoward "birth control," toward "birth con-trol pills," and toward "using birth controlpills." The behavioral criterion was the self-report of current use or nonuse of birth con-trol pills. Consistent with the degree of cor-respondence, the criterion was predicted best(r — .65) from the attitude toward the act ofusing birth control pills, and with least ac-curacy (r = .16) from the general attitudetoward birth control. The attitude towardbirth control pills had an intermediate corre-lation with the criterion (r = .34).

In a second study, 49 students in an intro-ductory speech class reported whether or notthey had attended church on a given Sunday.Attitudes were assessed toward "religion,"toward the "church," and toward "attendingchurch this Sunday." Again, attitude towardthe action was the best predictor of actualchurch attendance (r = .65), attitude towardthe church yielded an intermediate correlationof .47, and the general attitude toward re-

ligion did not correlate significantly with thecriterion (r — .18).

Finally, 270 college students expressedtheir attitudes toward "blood donation" andtoward "donating blood at the upcomingblood drive." The correlations of these atti-tudes with whether or not the respondentsactually donated blood at the blood drive inquestion were .30 and .43, respectively.17 Allthree studies thus support the claim that themagnitude of an attitude-behavior correla-tion increases with correspondence betweenattitudinal and behavioral entities.

Weigel, Vernon, and Tognacci (1974) alsovaried the specificity of the attitudinal pre-dictors and observed the effects on theirrelations to behavior. The subjects were 113residents of a medium-sized western city whowere included in a survey of attitudes towarda variety of environmental issues. Four atti-tude scales were of interest to the study. Thefirst (^i) was a measure of attitude towardthe Sierra Club (an organization concernedwith such issues as conservation of naturalresources and pollution control). The secondattitude measure (^2) was a 15-item Likertscale concerning conservation of natural re-sources. Attitudes toward pollution control(A3) were also measured by a 15-item Likertscale. Finally, attitudes toward the attain-ment of ecological goals (A*) were assessedby means of eight 5-point scales, each ofwhich evaluated the satisfaction derived fromattaining a specific goal (e.g., freedom fromovercrowding, being able to live in harmonywith nature).

The criterion measure was a 4-step be-havioral scale concerning the Sierra Club.

17 The relatively low correlation under high cor-respondence is explained in part by the fact thatmany subjects who appeared to donate blood wererejected for medical reasons or because of over-crowding (Pomazal & Jaccard, 1976). If showing upto donate blood had been used as the behavioralcriterion, the correlation would have increased con-siderably. In fact, intentions to donate blood at theupcoming blood drive were found to have a corre-lation of .46 with actual blood donations, and acorrelation of .59 with showing up to donate blood(Pomazal & Jaccard, 1976). Although not reported,we would expect a similar increment for the attitude-behavior correlation.


This measure was obtained 5 months afterthe assessment of attitudes. The lowest levelon this scale consisted of refusing to have anyfurther contact with the Sierra Club. The re-maining 3 levels ranged from agreeing to beon the club's mailing list to becoming a clubmember. It can be seen that this behavioralcriterion had the Sierra Club as its target andthat it represented a generalization acrossdifferent behaviors. As such, it correspondedhighly only to A\, the attitude toward theSierra Club. A2, Aa, and At corresponded tothe behavior in their action elements (unspec-ified) but not in their target elements. Thetarget elements of A-2 and AH, however, seemmore relevant to the Sierra Club (the targetof the behavior) than does the target elementof At.

Consistent with this analysis, Weigel, Ver-non, and Tognacci (1974) reported a corre-lation of .60 between Al and the behavioralcriterion. The correlations of A2 and As withbehavior, although significant, were muchlower (rs = .37 and .38, respectively). Anonsignificant coefficient of .16 was obtainedfor the relation between A\ and behavior.

In a series of investigations, Ajzen (1971)and Ajzen and Fishbein (1970, 1974) com-pared the predictive power of different atti-tude measures. Ajzen and Fishbein (1970)and Ajzen (1971) attempted to predict co-operative behavior in Prisoner's Dilemmagames. The subjects in the two studies werepairs of same-sex college students who playedthree Prisoner's Dilemma games that variedin their payoff matrices. Following a fewpractice trials, the players were asked tocomplete a questionnaire that included twosemantic-differential measures of attitudecomprised of four or five bipolar evaluativescales. These scales were used to obtain mea-sures of attitude toward choosing the co-operative strategy and of attitude toward theother player. The proportion of cooperativestrategy choices following completion of thequestionnaire served as the behavioralcriterion.

The target and action elements of thebehavioral entity corresponded to the targetand action elements of the first attitude(toward choosing the cooperative strategy).

The attitude toward the other player corre-sponded to the behavior in its target element,but it made no reference to a specific action.As would be expected, the attitude-behaviorcorrelations strongly reflected this differencein correspondence. Looking at the threegames played in the two experiments, actualchoice of cooperative moves correlated .63,.70, and .65 (p < .01 in each case) withattitude toward choosing the cooperativestrategy. In contrast, the correlations betweenattitude toward the other player and coopera-tive game behavior were very low and incon-sistent (r = .26, p < .05; r = .09, ns; r =.27, p < .05, respectively).

Similar results were reported by Ajzen andFishbein (1974), whose student subjects, ingroups of three, were required to coordinatetheir behaviors on an experimental task.Attitudes toward sending instructions to eachof the two co-workers correlated .60 (p <.01) with actual communicative behavior, andattitudes toward complying with receivedinstructions correlated .57 (p < .01) withactual compliance. In marked contrast, atti-tudes toward the co-workers (partial corre-spondence) predicted the two criteria .02 (notsignificant) and .19 (p < .05), respectively.18

The studies reviewed thus far attemptedto predict a given behavioral criterion fromdifferent kinds of attitudinal predictors. Theresults clearly show that high relations areobtained only when the attitudinal entitycorresponds to the behavioral entity both interms of its target element and in terms ofits action element. Three other studies heldconstant the nature of the attitudinal predic-tor and varied the behavioral criterion. Theresults again reflect the different degrees ofcorrespondence created in this fashion.

Tittle and Hill (1967) reported a study ofpolitical activity among a sample of 301college students. Attitudes toward involve-ment in student political activities were mea-sured by means of six different, but inter-correlated, instruments: A 15-item Thurstonescale; a Likert scale based on the same 15

"Differences were computed between the behav-iors with respect to the two co-workers, and thesame procedure was followed for the measures ofattitude.


items; a 10-item Likert scale; the sum overthe evaluations of five political activities onsemantic differentials; a 10-item Guttmanscale; and a self-report of attitude towardstudent politics.

Five behavioral criteria were constructed.By inspecting the voting records, it was pos-sible to determine whether each subject hadvoted in the last student election ( B i ) . Thesecond criterion (Bz) was the self-reportedfrequency of voting in the last four elections.A Guttman scale based on the self-reportedfrequency of eight political activities servedas the third behavioral criterion ( B s ) , Self-reported frequencies of 10 political activitieswere scored in a Likert fashion (Bi). Thefinal criterion (B5) was an index based onthe self-reported frequency of five activities,scored as suggested by Woodward and Roper(1950).

Tittle and Hill (1967) intended the firsttwo criteria to reflect specific behaviors(single-act criteria), whereas the remainingthree indices were designed to represent gen-eral behavioral patterns (multiple-act cri-teria). From our point of view, B3> Bt, andB 5 corresponded to the attitude measures inboth their target and action elements. BI andB 2 corresponded to the target element of theattitudes, but not to their action element,since the attitude measures were not actionspecific. Nevertheless, voting in student elec-tions may be one of the major expressions ofpolitical activism for many students. If so,.Bi and J52 might correlate highly with B3,B4, and J35, and great differences in attitude-behavior correlations could hardly beexpected.

Inspection of the data reveals that thiswas indeed the case. The correlations betweenfii and B2 on the one hand and Ba, B±, and-BB on the other ranged from .56 to .79 (allhighly significant). The relations between thesix attitudinal predictors and the first two(partially corresponding) criteria were ofmoderate size; the average gamma coefficientwas .37, The average gamma for the predic-tion of Bs, £4, and Bs from the six attitudescales was .48. Although the average coefficientobtained under high correspondence wasindeed greater than the average coefficient

obtained under partial correspondence, thedifference was not very impressive. The highcorrelations between the two types of criteriamay be at least in part responsible for thisfinding.

Much more convincing results were re-ported by Fishbein and Ajzen (1974) in aninvestigation of religious behavior. Sixty-twoundergraduate college students were given alist of 100 behaviors dealing with matters ofreligion and were asked to check the be-haviors they had performed. These behaviorsincluded praying before and after meals,taking a religious course for credit, anddating a person against parents' wishes. Eachresponse constituted a single-act criterion. Inaddition, four multiple-act criteria were con-structed on the basis of multiple behaviors.The first was simply the sum of the total setof 100 behaviors, taking into account theevaluation of religiosity implied by each be-havior. A second index was a Guttman scaleof a subset of eight behaviors. The third andfourth indices were Likert and Thurstonescales based on 20 and 13 behaviors,respectively.

Attitudes toward religion were assessed bymeans of five scales that were highly inter-correlated. The measures were a self-reportof religiosity, a semantic-differential evalu-ation of "being religious," and three standardscales measuring religiosity: a Likert scale,a Guttman scale, and a Thurstone scale.

It can be seen that all multiple-act criteriacorresponded both in their targets (religion)and in their action elements (unspecified), tothe general measures of attitudes towardreligion. In contrast, the 100 single-act criteriacorresponded to the attitudinal entities interms of their targets but not in terms oftheir action elements. We would thus expectthe behavioral indices to be highly related tothe different attitude scales, and we shouldfind relatively low and inconsistent relationsbetween attitudes and the 100 singlebehaviors.

The results of the study strongly supportedthese expectations. Correlations betweensingle behaviors and attitudes were quite low;the average correlations for the five attitudescales ranged from .12 to .15. In contrast, the


correlations with the behavioral indices werehigh and significant. The range of attitude-behavior correlations under these conditionsof high correspondence was from .45 to .75,and the average correlation was .63.

It could be argued that one weakness ofthis investigation was its reliance on self-reports (cf. Schuman & Johnson, 1976). Arecent study by Weigel and Newman (1976),however, showed the same pattern of resultsfor observations of actual behavior. Theseinvestigators used a 16-item Likert scale tomeasure attitudes toward protecting environ-mental quality. A total of 14 behavioralobservations were obtained 3 to 8 monthslater. The behaviors involved signing and cir-culating three different petitions concerningenvironmental issues, participating in a litterpick-up program, and participating in a re-cycling program on eight separate occasions.In addition to these 14 single-act criteria,Weigel and Newman constructed fourmultiple-act indices: one based on petitionsigning behaviors, one on litter pick-ups, oneon recycling, and one overall index based onall 14 single behaviors.

Consistent with our analysis, attitude-behavior correlations increased as the actionelement of the criterion increased in its degreeof correspondence with the unspecified actionelement of the attitude. The average correla-tion between attitude and the 14 single be-haviors was not significant (r = .29), theaverage correlation with the three behavioralindices of intermediate generality was .42(p < .01), and under the highest degreeof correspondence the correlation with theoverall index was .62 (p < .01).

Conclusion

Studies permitting comparisons betweendifferent levels of correspondence have gen-erally been supportive of our analysis of theattitude-behavior relation. The relations be-tween attitude and behavior tend to increasein magnitude as the attitudinal and be-havioral entities come to correspond moreclosely in terms of their target and actionelements. This is especially true when wecompare partial or low correspondence withhigh correspondence. Of course, attitude-

behavior relations tend to be attenuatedwhenever inappropriate measures of attitudeor behavior are obtained. Such problems canbe avoided by using standard scaling proce-dures, both with respect to measures of atti-tude and with respect to behavioral criteriaconsisting of more than a single behavior.Whenever adequate precautions have beentaken, high correspondence has been foundto produce relatively strong relations betweenattitude and behavior.

Ambiguity in Correspondence

We should note at this point that it maysometimes be quite difficult to determinecorrespondence in a given instance. What, forexample, is the target of donating money tothe Heart Fund if the money is collected bya neighbor? Is it the Heart Fund, the neigh-bor, or both? Alternatively, the Heart Fundmight be viewed as the target, and the neigh-bor as part of the context. In fact, the readermay occasionally have disagreed with ourinterpretation of correspondence in the stud-ies reviewed. With respect to a number ofstudies, we found it all but impossible tomake a decision and we therefore did notinclude them in our review.

Consider, for example, the study by Hoi-man (1956), which examined attendance atfootball games among 256 students at theUniversity of Southern California. The sub-jects were given a 12-item questionnairedesigned to measure "attitude toward footballgames." However, one of the items Holmanprovided as an example was, "How would youdescribe attendance at football games? (checkone): very worthwhile, worthwhile, not veryworthwhile, worthless." Clearly, a subject mayhave a favorable attitude toward footballgames but an unfavorable attitude towardattending football games. It is not clearwhether the questionnaire measured only thelatter attitude or a combinaion of both. Thebehavioral criteria were self-reports of attend-ance following each of seven football games,as well as the sum of these seven scores.Depending on our interpretation of the atti-tude measure, the attitudinal and behavioralentities may or may not have correspondedin their action elements (attending football


games). There was clearly little correspond-ence of target elements, since attitudes weremeasured with respect to football games ingeneral, whereas the behavior was directed atthe local home games. The attitude-behaviorcorrelations were of low to moderate magni-tude, ranging from .21 to .59.

Relatively low and inconclusive findingswere also reported by Izzett (1971), O'Keefe(1971), Wicker (1971), Hackman and Porter(1968), and Bostrom (1970). As in Holman'sstudy, the correspondence between attitudinaland behavioral entities in these investigationswas ambiguous. For example, Wicker (1971)reported correlations between 13 differentpredictors and 4 behavioral criteria. Many ofthese measures were indices based on a num-ber of responses combined in complicatedfashions. As a result, it is difficult to identifytheir target and action elements. The attitude-behavior correlations were low, ranging from—.01 to .45. However, the measures thatappeared to correspond most closely to thecriterion were found to provide the mostaccurate predictions (for a detailed analysis,see Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, chapter 8).

One other issue deserves comment in thiscontext. Attitudes toward actions, even whenthey correspond to the criterion in their tar-get and action elements, rarely make explicitreference to the person's own performance ofthe behavior under consideration. For ex-ample, like Kothandapani (1971), Insko,Blake, Cialdini, and Mulaik (1970) at-tempted to predict use of birth controlmethods among black and white womenbetween 15 and 44 years of age. Two mea-sures of attitudes toward "using birth controlmethods" were obained. The behavioral cri-terion was the self-reported frequency of useof birth control methods.

Whereas the attitudinal entity in this studydealt with the general use of birth controlmethods, the behavioral entity referred tothe respondent's use of such methods.19

Although the distinction between attitudetoward performing a behavior in general andattitude toward my performing the samebehavior may often be of little importance,there is reason to believe that this distinctioncannot be neglected in the present instance.

A woman who is generally opposed to the useof birth control methods may favor their usein her own case for health-related reasons.Conversely, a woman who holds a favorableattitude toward using birth control methodsin general may have a negative attitudetoward using such methods herself if, forexample, she wants to have a child. Consistentwith this argument, Insko et al. reported sig-nificant but relatively low correlations be-tween their two attitude scales and theirbehavioral criterion (rs = .29 and .25).

Similar considerations apply when measur-ing attitudes toward smoking or drinking, asopposed to attitudes toward my smoking ormy drinking. To ensure correspondence, itmay be necessary to make the personalreference of the attitude measure as explicitas possible.

General Discussion

The view that attitude is the most distinc-tive and indispensible concept in social psy-chology (Allport, 1935) has recently givenway to a more skeptical view of the concept'sutility. The skepticism is in large part dueto the disappointing results of studies at-tempting to make use of attitudes to predictovert behavior. Although these attempts haveoccasionally been successful, most have pro-duced rather low and nonsignificant attitude-behavior relations. It is thus hardly surpris-ing that the attitude concept has come underincreasingly strong criticism.

The present article has attempted to showthat the disenchantment with the attitudeconcept may be unwarranted. In fact, we haveseen that the findings concerning the relationbetween attitude and behavior only appear tobe inconsistent. A person's attitude has a con-sistently strong relation with his or her be-havior when it is directed at the same targetand when it involves the same action. Gen-erally low and inconsistent relations are ob-served when the attitudinal and behavioralentities fail to correspond in one or both of

19 Recall that Kothandapani (1971) did in factmeasure attitudes toward personal use of birth con-trol methods.


these elements. Table 1 shows the effect ofcorrespondence on the magnitude of attitude-behavior relations.

Of the 109 investigations reviewed in thisarticle, 84 displayed either low, partial, orhigh correspondence between attitudinal andbehavioral entities. The remaining 25 studiesreported relations under two or three differ-ent degrees of correspondence. Consequently,a total of 142 attitude-behavior relations arereported in Table 1. It can be seen that lowcorrespondence produces mostly nonsignifi-cant attitude-behavior relations. Partial cor-respondence tends to result in highly incon-sistent findings. The majority of studies inthis category obtained either low but signifi-cant relations, or inconsistent results acrossdifferent conditions and measures. The re-maining studies reported mainly nonsignifi-cant relations. In contrast, under high corre-spondence, significant attitude-behavior rela-tions of considerable magnitude were found.Inappropriate measures tend to reduce theobtained relations between attitude and be-havior, but appropriate measures invariablyproduce strong relationships.20

Our review of research on the attitude-behavior relation has focused on correspond-ence in terms of target and action elements.Little attention has been given to correspond-ence in contextual and time elements, pri-marily because few studies have provideddirect evidence concerning the effects ofcorrespondence in these elements. Lack ofcorrespondence in the contextual element maywell have contributed to some of the lowcorrelations mentioned in this review. Giventhe increased interest in the attitude-behaviorrelation, and the recent concern with theeffects of private versus public conditions onthis relation (e.g., Acock & DeFleur, 1972;Albrecht, DeFleur, & Warner, 1972; Frideres,Warner, & Albrecht, 1971; Liska, 1974b;Warner & DeFleur, 1969; Schofield, 197S),more attention will have to be paid to cor-respondence in context. To obtain high atti-tude-behavior correlations in studies in whichthe context is systematically manipulated, itis essential to ensure not only correspondencein target and action elements but also corre-spondence in the contextual element.

Table 1Effect of Correspondence on theAttitude-Behavior Relation

Attitude-behaviorrelation

Correspondence

LowPartialHigh

Questionable measuresAppropriate measures

Notsignifi-cant

2620

00

Low"or

incon-sistent

147

90

Highb

04

926

Note, The cell entries represent the number of atti-tude-behavior relations.0 r < .40.b r > .40.

Although this discussion may appear toimply that attitude measures have to bespecific with respect to target, action, andcontext, we have argued that the problem isone of correspondence between predictor andcriterion, not a problem of specificity. Ofcourse, if the investigator chooses to observea single action with respect to a given targetin a given context in order to obtain cor-respondence, the attitude also has to be veryspecific. On the other hand, if she is reallyinterested in a general behavioral pattern,such as discrimination toward blacks, thebehavioral criterion should involve obser-vation of different discriminatory behaviorstoward various black individuals in a varietyof contexts. A general measure of attitudetoward blacks will correspond to such acriterion.

In conclusion, our review and theoreticalanalysis suggest that low and inconsistentattitude-behavior relations are attributableto low or partial correspondence betweenattitudinal and behavioral entities. To pre-dict behavior from attitude, the investigatorhas to ensure high correspondence betweenat least the target and action elements of themeasures he employs.

20 The rank-order correlation between correspon-dence and the magnitude of the attitude-behaviorrelation in Table 1 was found to be .83.


Lest attitude researchers conclude that allis well and resume their complacency, wehasten to add a few words of caution. First,attitude measurement, even by means ofsophisticated instruments, may add little toour understanding of social phenomena. Aninvestigator attempting to explain a certainphenomenon in terms of an attitudinalanalysis must first define the behaviors ofinterest, the targets at which they are directed,and the context and time of their occurrence.Measures of attitude will serve to explain thebehaviors to the extent that they involveidentical target, action, context, and timeelements.

Second, attempts to influence behavior bymeans of attitude change must also considerthe degree of correspondence between thebehavior that is to be changed and the atti-tude at which the influence attempt isdirected. Demonstration of attitude change isinsufficient evidence for one's ability to changebehavior; only behaviors that correspond tothe attitude are likely to change as a resultof revisions in attitude.

Finally, high correspondence between pre-dictors and criteria will ensure strong atti-tude-behavior relations only to the extentthat appropriate measurement procedures areemployed. For too long it has been at theinvestigator's discretion to select any mea-sures deemed useful and to assign the labelsattitude and behavior to them. Attitudinaland behavioral measures are often selected inan arbitrary manner, leading to apparentlyinconsistent research findings.

In sum, only when standard procedures areemployed to scale attitudes and to select be-haviors and only when attention is paid tothe correspondence between attitudinal andbehavioral entities will the concept of attitudebe able to resume the place it was accordedby Allport (1954) as the cornerstone in theedifice of social psychology.

Reference Notes

1. Brislin, R. W., & Olmsted, K. An examination oftwo models designed to predict behavior fromattitude and other verbal measures. Unpublishedmanuscript, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii,1973.

2. Fishbein, M., Thomas, K., & Jaccard, J. J. Anattitudinal analysis of British voting behavior.Unpublished manuscript, Social Science ResearchCouncil, Survey Unit, London, 197S.

3. Jaccard, J. J., King, G. W., & Pomazal, R. Atti-tudes and behavior: An analysis of specificity ofattitudinal predictors. Unpublished manuscript,University of Illinois, 1975.

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