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Perception of Easy–Difficult: Attitude or Self‐Efficacy?
Author(s) -
Leach Mark,
Hennessy Michael,
Fishbein Martin
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb02478.x
Subject(s) - psychology , condom , social psychology , semantic differential , perception , set (abstract data type) , context (archaeology) , confirmatory factor analysis , relation (database) , structural equation modeling , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , computer science , data mining , medicine , paleontology , syphilis , family medicine , neuroscience , machine learning , biology , programming language
This study investigates the semantic‐differential item easy‐difficult in order to evaluate whether it can be considered a measure of attitude or self‐efficacy in relation to consistent condom use with sex partners. Using confirmatory factor analysis and comparing a set of logically nested models, our findings suggest that easy‐difficult acts most like an attitude item in relation to this particular behavior, especially for males rating condom use with their main sex partners. However, for females and to a less extent males with nonmain sex partners, easy‐difficult acts as a measure of both attitude and self‐efficacy. Therefore, the use of easy‐difficult items should be avoided or used with caution in this research context.