Testing the Risk Perception Attitude Framework in the Context of Texting While Driving

Abstract

Texting while driving has become an increasingly prevalent health threat, and research is needed to identify important elements of persuasive messages aimed at reducing its occurrence. The current study tested the risk perception attitude framework (Rimal & Real, 2003) with the outcomes of issue salience, behavioral intentions, and behavioral effects (i.e., a behavioral proxy measure) of texting while driving. Results revealed that risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs increased issue salience and behavioral intentions, and efficacy beliefs moderated the relationship between risk perceptions and behavioral effects. These findings are expected to help inform future intervention efforts to inhibit texting while driving.

Keywords:

• Behavioral Intentions
• Issue Salience
• Risk Perception Attitude Framework
• Texting

Notes

Rimal and Juon (2010) found that efficacy beliefs moderated the relationship between risk perceptions and breast self-examinations in a sample of immigrant Indian women.

A number of theoretical frameworks operating from a consistency principle and much extant research support the contention that making an open commitment to do (or in this case, not to do) something strongly increases the likelihood that an individual will (or will not) do it (e.g., cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger, 1957; see also Cialdini, 1993).

The results of a longitudinal study by Hallaq (1976) showed that individuals who pledged to refrain from smoking for one hour per day for one month later indicated their desire to stop smoking entirely, and these individuals also professed a willingness to recommend that their friends take the same pledge.

Although previous work significantly informed these efforts (e.g., Witte, 1994), that work deals with different types of risks (e.g., contraction of HIV/AIDS, developing various cancers, etc.) and related efficacy assessments than does the current study, thus the risks (and, therefore, the behaviors that could potentially aid in thwarting those risks) that are relevant to those health threats do not translate to the context of this study.

Following responsives, proactives (i.e., those with low risk perceptions and high efficacy beliefs) were most likely to take the pledge. Those with weak efficacy beliefs (i.e., indifferents and avoidants) were less likely to pledge not to text while driving than those with strong efficacy beliefs. However, the differences among the proactive, indifferent, and responsive groups were small.

Importantly, Bandura (1977) suggested that efficacy is related both to the effort exerted to perform a behavior and to perseverance in carrying out the behavior, even when faced with obstacles. Further, Bandura claimed that efficacy is best conceptualized and operationalized as domain specific, as individuals' efficacy beliefs vary across situations, activities, task demands, temporal constraints, etc. (e.g., Hofstetter, Sallis, & Hovell, 1990). As such, messages designed to increase efficacy—as Bandura claims with regard to measures of efficacy—must be targeted to “particular domains of functioning, and must represent gradations of task demands within those domain” (Bandura, 1997, p. 42). Thus, messages that attempt to increase college students' efficacy not to text while driving, generally, should prove too wide-ranging and nonspecific to have a significant effect. Instead, messages should be crafted with the goal of increasing these individuals' efficacy to successfully carry out specific behaviors that then function to deter texting while driving (e.g., turning one's cell phone off, silencing the text message alert, etc.). Reinforcing and/or bolstering college students' efficacy should increase their agreement to publicly pledge to stop texting while driving, which should influence their subsequent willingness to stop texting while driving.

Rimal and Real (2003) argue that the RPA framework has a practical advantage for health practitioners because it allows for the utilization of audience segmentation in order to develop health messages specifically targeted to increase risk and/or efficacy perceptions as needed.

Research has shown that once an individual takes an official stance/makes a public commitment, s/he exhibits a strong propensity toward behaving in accordance with that commitment (e.g., Greenwald, Carnot, Beach, & Young, 1987), and other research revealed that pledge takers subsequently reported an increased desire to refrain from doing what they pledged not to do (Hallaq, 1976).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Megan R. Dillow

Megan R. Dillow (PhD, The Pennsylvania State University, 2006) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University.

Alexander G. Walsh

Alexander G. Walsh (MA, DePaul University, 2012) was a PhD student at West Virginia University at the time of study completion.

Frances Spellman

Frances Spellman (MA, West Virginia University, 2013) was a MA student at West Virginia University at the time of study completion.

Megan Quirk

Megan Quirk (MA, West Virginia University, 2013) was a MA student at West Virginia University at the time of study completion.