Private self-consciousness as moderator of the importance of attitude and subjective norm: The prediction of voting

✍ Scribed by Agustin Echebarria Echabe; Jose F Valencia Garate

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 568 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2420240206

✦ Synopsis

The inpuence of private self-consciousness on the components of Ajzen and Fishbein's attitude model (attitude and subjective norm) is analysed. The impact ofpast behaviour on both current behaviour and behavioural intention is also studied. This model was applied to the prediction of voting intention and reported behaviour in the Spanish Parliamentary elections held in 1989, Attitude showedstronger injluence than subjective norm on behavioural intention for subjects with a higher private self-consciousness. The opposite was true for subjects having a lower private self-consciousness. Past behaviour had a significant infIuence on both behaviourai intention and behaviour.

AJZEN AND FISHBEIN'S MODEL, PAST EXPERIENCE AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

This study focuses on the impact of private self-consciousness on behaviour. Ajzen and Fishbein's attitude model was applied to the prediction of voting in the Spanish Parliamentary Elections held in 1989. Ajzen and Fishbein (1980, p. 55) define attitudes as 'overall evaluations that can be measured by a procedure which locates respondents on a bipolar evaluation dimension'. Attitude is assessed by multiplying the subject's evaluation of the attributes belonging to the attitude object by the importance that the subject attaches to these attributes. A second element in Ajzen and Fishbein's model, subjective norm, is defined as 'the subject's perception that most people who are important to h i d e r think he/she should or should not perform the behaviour in question' (AjZen and Fishbein, 1980, p. 57). Ajzen andFishbein (1977, 1980;Ajzen, 1987Ajzen, , 1988) also pointed out that a subject's behavioural intention is 'the immediate determinant of behaviour'. Finally, attitude and subjective norm allow prediction of behavioural intention.