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The Attitude–Behavior Relationship: A Test of Three Models of the Moderating Role of Behavioral Difficulty 1
Author(s) -
Kaiser Florian G.,
Schultz P. Wesley
Publication year - 2009
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.1559-1816.2008.00435.x
Subject(s) - moderation , psychology , social psychology , test (biology) , attitude , positive relationship , biology , paleontology
The moderating role of behavioral difficulty in the attitude–behavior relationship remains a controversial topic in social psychology. Previous research has been unclear in establishing the direction of this moderation, and 3 theoretical models have been proposed: positive and linear; negative and monotonic; and quadratic. The current paper reports analyses of survey data from 5 different studies that afford measures of environmental attitude, behavior, and behavioral difficulty. Across these studies, we found a substantial and unmoderated average attitude–behavior relationship ( r = .54). The data also show that the attitude–behavior relationship is weaker for extremely easy and extremely difficult behaviors. Additional analyses suggest, however, that these reductions in the attitude–behavior relationship are probably because of methodological reasons.