The Influence of Attitude Accessibility on Attitude-Behavior Relationships: Implications for Recreation Research

Abstract

Recreation researchers frequently employ the attitude concept in studying recreation phenomenon, yet there are times when attitude-behavior relationships are weak. One explanation for this is attitude accessibility, i.e. attitudes might not guide behavior because they are not accessed or available in memory. Factors affecting accessibility are direct experience and repeated pairing of an attitude with an object. These concepts were tested by examining attitude-behavioral intention relationships for three levels of prior site visitation and three levels of prior topic discussion. The attitude object was a person's support of controlled-burn fire policies for parks and natural areas. Results show that at higher levels of experience and discussion (1) there is an improved prediction of intentions to support the policy from attitudes, and (2) attitudes are more extreme. These findings have implications for the use of attitudes in predicting recreation behavior, for examining issues of non-participation in recreation, and in attempting persuasive communication in recreation settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Preferences
• opinions
• non-participation
• persuasion
• fire policy