That Was My Intention

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I intended many months ago to maintain a regular presence here. You see what happened with that!

Intentions are interesting. It’s hard to know if they will ever lead to actions. Often times, they just sit there, waiting to be used. You might intend to thank someone for a kindness or exercise every day or read the newest best seller. But those intentions don’t mean a lot unless you act on them.

Can you tell if someone is likely to act on their intentions? According to Martin Fishbein and Icek Aizen you might not be able to tell by just looking at someone but it’s likely you can tell by their attitudes and beliefs. Fishbein and Aizen’s Theory of Planned Behavior, or TpB, states that human action is guided by three considerations: behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs.

Naughty or Nice

Can TpB predict “naughty or nice” behavior prior to Christmas? Let’s take a look at the three predictors:

• Behavioral beliefs involve the likely outcomes of behavior and the evaluations of these outcomes. A child may believe that if he is good, he’ll get lots of toys from Santa; if he’s bad, he’ll get nothing or coal. (However, if the child’s a natural artist, a lump of coal might provide hours of fun. Find that mark!)
• Normative beliefs involve beliefs about what others expect and how motivated the individual is to comply with those expectations. A child might ask himself when presented with an opportunity to torment his little sister without his parents catching him “What will Santa think if he sees me? He’ll probably be angry.” Whether or not he leaves his sister alone will depend a lot on how much fun he thinks he might actually have making her miserable compared to how much he thinks he might lose in Christmas loot. Which motivates him more? The immediate fun or the toys at risk?
• Control beliefs involve the presence (perceived or actual) of factors that may facilitate or impede the individual’s performance of the behavior and the perceived power of these factors. How much control does the child have over his behavior or over what his parents might have told Santa? Can he really convince Santa to bring him what he wants if he’s good? Or does Santa leave good gifts on a whim and leave underwear more often than not?

Typically, if the child really believes he’ll get more toys by being good, that Santa is really swayed by good behavior and that it’s better to have toys than to make his little sister cry, and that he has the power to convince Santa to bring him the toys he wants (despite his parent’s possible objections), the more likely he is intend to be “nice” instead of “naughty” and to actually follow through on those intentions.

Attitude Adjustments

Intervention to change attitudes and behavior can be directed to any of the determinants: attitudes, subjective norms, or perceptions of behavioral control. For the child waiting for Christmas, we would want to target determinants that indicate the need for significant change. If attitudes toward the behavior are positive, then attempts to improve attitudes will have little effect. If the child believes he’ll get the same amount of presents whether he’s naughty or nice, we’d want to try to change that perception.

Then we can attack the strength of the belief or the scale the values of the beliefs. In this case, we’d need to turn the belief completely around to attack the strength. Or, we can introduce new beliefs. This might mean introducing the idea that the dog is Santa’s spy so, even if his parents aren’t around, the dog could thwart his efforts to secure lots of Christmas goodies.

The most important factor, though, is that the individual must be capable on carrying out the desired behaviors. For some children, this is a matter of self-control. And there are those who have little or none. They are fighting a losing battle over “naughty” versus “nice.”

Reading Minds

So, how do you determine intentions and likelihood of action? Aizen recommends a questionnaire that measures how often the subject participates in the behavior as well as predictor variables including intention, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. The responses to the questions are ratings along a bi-polar scale, usually of seven rankings with terms like “strongly agree…strongly disagree”, “harmful…beneficial”, "unpleasant…enjoyable", and “extremely likely…..extremely unlikely”. Belief composites can be compiled from the data and can be used to predict behavior.

While it’s unlikely we’ll get the child to fill out or even understand the questionnaire, we can use this method to evaluate to evaluate likely behavior for any number of things from adoption of technology to use of condoms to making commitments to pets. Understanding motivation to act can point us in the right direction to influence either changes in attitudes (and, we hope, behavior) or introduce new beliefs.

Now, if we can just figure out how to more effectively promote “nice” over “naughty.”