Prototypes reflect normative perceptions: implications for the development of reasoned action theory

Abstract

The reasoned action approach is one of the most successful behavioral theories in the history of social psychology. This study outlines the theoretical principles of reasoned action and considers when it is appropriate to augment it with a new variable. To demonstrate, we use survey data collected from a 4 to 17 year old U.S. adolescents to test how the ‘prototype’ variables fit into reasoned action approach. Through confirmatory factor analysis, we find that the prototype measures are normative pressure measures and when treated as a separate theoretical construct, prototype identity is not completely mediated by the proximal predictors of behavioral intention. We discuss the assumptions of the two theories and finally consider the distinction between augmenting a specific theory versus combining measures derived from different theoretical perspectives.

Keywords:

• Reasoned action
• prototypes
• alcohol and aggression
• adolescents

Acknowledgements

This publication was made possible by Grant No. 1R21HD079615 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD. We thank the reviewers for Psychology, Health & Medicine for their very helpful comments.

Notes

1. In early studies they were labeled ‘subjective’ normative beliefs (Madden, Ellen, & Ajzen, 1992).

2. Not all theory change increases complexity and the devolution of the ‘Easy-Difficult’ semantic differential item is an illustrative counter example. ‘Easy-Difficult’ was originally used as both a measure of attitude, like Good-Bad or Foolish-Wise, two semantic-differential items with a long history (Fishbein & Raven, 1962) and also as a statistical control (Madden et al., 1992). However, the issue of its construct validity was never investigated to answer the question: What kind of measure is ‘Easy-Difficult’? Consider that if Easy behaviors are ‘good’ and Difficult ones are ‘bad’, then ‘Easy-Difficult’ is an attitude measure, but if individuals perceive many people performing the target behavior or few people performing the target behavior, then ‘Easy-Difficult’ is a function of descriptive norms. Finally, if behaviors are classified as either Easy or Difficult because of the absence or presence of barriers to their performance, then ‘Easy-Difficult’ is control measure. Once some comparative analysis was done on the quantitative performance of ‘Easy-Difficult’ (Leach, Hennessy, & Fishbein, 2001; Yzer, 2012; Yzer, Hennessy, & Fishbein, 2004), the general conclusion was that it probably should not be used in a reasoned action analysis because of these conceptual ambiguities.

3. The other component of the prototype approach is ‘willingness’ to perform the behavior. Prototype theorists believe that willingness captures a more ‘non-rational’ dimension of decision-making than intention measures used in reason action (Gibbons, Gerrard, Blanton, & Russell, 1998) while Fishbein and Ajzen contend that willingness is a type of intention measure (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010, pp. 42, 43, 463). Because we are concerned the role of prototypes in reason action theory (and not the reverse), we don’t discuss the willingness/intention issue here.

4. Adolescent behavioral research usually focuses on a specific behavior (e.g. alcohol consumption) but risk behaviors frequently co-occur with one another (Brener & Collins, 1998; DuRant, Smith, Kreiter, & Krowchuk, 1999; Hair, Park, Ling, & Moore, 2009; Jessor, 1991). Alcohol use and aggressive behaviors are common in adolescence. The use of the reasoned action approach in this study to examine the combination of alcohol and aggression sex is consistent with the idea of expectancies explaining one’s behavioral decision as a function of the constructs relevant to intention formation and corresponding underlying beliefs about what may or may not happen when these two behaviors are combined in a particular situation.