Group Dynamics and Attitude-Behavior Relations

A model is presented in which attitudes have effects on behaviors, behaviors are compared against norms to define deviance, and deviance has a return, corrective effect on attitudes through mechanisms of social control. Social interactions link these individual processes to form a single interpersonal system within a group. It is demonstrated that in a system of this kind, an attitude-behavior correlation is a function of many different social psychological effects, and its value conceivably could be positive, zero, or even negative. Results of a preliminary empirical study using two-stage least squares to estimate system parameters show that the proposed system is viable with some modifications. In particular, empirical evidence in support of an attitude-behavior effect is found.