Emergent Issues in the Attitude-Behavior Consistency Controversy

In this paper we review recent efforts to examine attitude-behavior inconsistency as a multivariate research problem. Rather than either assuming a one to one relationship or documenting the contrary, recent researchers have reconceptualized the problem as identifying the conditions which affect the relationship. Although numerous variables have been examined in the recent literature, most of the multivariate research seems to be addressed to three underlying issues: one, the extent to which measurement invalidity may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; two, the extent to which other competing but unmeasured attitudes may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; and, three, the extent to which attitude incongruent social norms may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship.

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