Research on the relation between attitude and behavior is examined in light of the correspondence between attitudinal and behavioral entities. Such entities are defined by their target, action, context, and time elements. A review of available empirical research supports the contention that strong attitude-behavior relations dre obtained only under high correspondence between at least the target and action elements of the attitudinal and behavioral entities. This conclusion is compared with the rather pessimistic assessment of the utility of the attitude concept found in much contemporary social psychological literature.

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Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research.

This article develops a conceptual framework for advancing theories of environmentally significant individual behavior and reports on the attempts of the author’s research group and others to develop such a theory. It discusses definitions of environmentally significant behavior; classifies the behaviors and their causes; assesses theories of environmentalism, focusing especially on value-belief-norm theory; evaluates the relationship between environmental concern and behavior; and summarizes evidence on the factors that determine environmentally significant behaviors and that can effectively alter them. The article concludes by presenting some major propositions supported by available research and some principles for guiding future research and informing the design of behavioral programs for environmental protection. Recent developments in theory and research give hope for building the understanding needed to effectively alter human behaviors that contribute to environmental problems. This article develops a conceptual framework for the theory of environmentally significant individual behavior, reports on developments toward such a theory, and addresses five issues critical to building a theory that can inform efforts to promote proenvironmental behavior.

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New Environmental Theories: Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior

Alternative descriptions of a decision problem often give rise to different preferences, contrary to the principle of invariance that underlines the rational theory of choice. Violations of this theory are traced to the rules that govern the framing of decision and to the psychological principles of evaluation embodied in prospect theory. Invariance and dominance are obeyed when their application is transparent and often violated in other situations. Because these rules are normatively essential but descriptively invalid, no theory of choice can be both normatively adequate and descriptively accurate.

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Rational choice and the framing of decisions

Publisher Summary Central to the theoretical model of personal normative influences on altruism presented in this chapter is the idea that altruistic behavior is causally influenced by feelings of moral obligation to act on one's personally held norms. Research supporting this central tenet of the model has demonstrated associations between personal norms and behavior rather than causal relations. These associations are partly causal because the associations appear primarily in the presence of personality conditions conducive to norm activation and are absent when personality conditions are conducive to deactivation, and attributes of personal norms (e.g., centrality, stability, and intensity) relate to altruism singly or in combination, in ways predicted when the causal impact of anticipated moral costs on behavior is assumed. Studies show that variations in situational conditions conducive to activation of moral obligation also influence the relationship between personal norms and behavior. There is ample evidence that variables that foster movement through the activation process—according to the theoretical model—are themselves related to altruistic behavior (e.g., seriousness of need and uniqueness of responsibility). The study of how personal norms are related to altruism is a part of a larger enterprise—the investigation of attitude–behavior relations in general.

Normative Influences on Altruism

Contrary to theoretical expectations, measures of willingness to accept greatly exceed measures of willingness to pay. This paper reports several experiments that demonstrate that this "endowment effect" persists even in market settings with opportunities to learn. Consumption objects (e.g., coffee mugs) are randomly given to half the subjects in an experiment. Markets for the mugs are then conducted. The Coase theorem predicts that about half the mugs will trade, but observed volume is always significantly less. When markets for "induced-value" tokens are conducted, the predicted volume is observed, suggesting that transactions costs cannot explain the undertrading for consumption goods.

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Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem

The well known travel cost method (TC)has been widely applied to outdoor recreation. A second approach has been referred to in the past as the Davis method, the questionnaire approach, and contingent valuation. It will here be termed hypothetical valuation (HV), since it involves creating a hypothetical situation designed to elicit willingness to pay for or willingness to accept compensation for a recreational or other extramarket good (or bad). TC and HV are termed "indirect methods", since they do not depend on the direct information about prices and quantities that economists would prefer to use where available to value goods and services.

Measuring Values of Extramarket Goods: Are Indirect Measures Biased?

Two hundred fourteen manipulations of the independent variables in 98 mailed questionnaire response rate experiments were treated as respondents to a survey, yielding a mean final response rate of 60.6% with slightly over two contacts. The number of contacts and the judged salience to the respondent were found to explain 51% of the variance in final response. Government organization sponsorship, the type of population, the length of the questionnaire, questions concerning other individuals, the use of a special class of mail or telephone on the third contact, and the use of metered or franked mail on the outer envelope affected final response independent of contacts and salience. A causal model of the final response rate, including initial response, explaining 90% of the variance, and a regression equation predicting final response rates are presented to show that high response rates are achievable by manipulating the costs of responding and the perceived importance of both the research and the individual response.

Factors affecting response rates to mailed questionnaires: A quantitative analysis of the published literature.

Chapter 1: Attitudes, Rivers, and Environmental Fixes Chapter 2: Reading Water and Minds Chapter 3: Aldo Leopold Meets the Bennington Women Chapter 4: Attitudes are Not Everything Chapter 5: Educating the Public ... and Other Disasters Chapter 6: Norms Chapter 7: Aldo Leopold and the Flying Horse Chapter 8: Avoiding the Cognitive Fix Keeper Hole Chapter 9: Going with the Flow Chapter 10: Increasing the Flow: Activating and Creating Norms Chapter 11: Thinking Beyond the Rim Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index

Thomas A. Heberlein

Papers

Measuring Values of Extramarket Goods: Are Indirect Measures Biased?

Factors affecting response rates to mailed questionnaires: A quantitative analysis of the published literature.

Navigating Environmental Attitudes

Carrying Capacity in Recreation Settings

Attitudes of hunters, locals, and the general public in Sweden now that the wolves are back