The Relationship of Commitment-Free Behavior and Commitment Behavior: A Study of Attitude Toward Organ Transplantation

A highly reliable Likert-type summated rating scale was constructed to measure attitude toward organ transplantation, judged to be a contemporary topic with ambiguous normative guidelines. Subsequently, a sample of subjects was presented the opportunity to sign a legal document providing for posthumous donation of their organs. Responses to the criterion situation provided an eight-point Guttman scale of commitment behavior. There was a substantial relationship between attitude scores and criterion behavior as expressed in a Pearson correlation coefficient of .58.