An Examination of an Alternative Form of the Behavioral Intention Model's Normative Component

A Reconceptualization

Compliance occurs when an individual accepts influence from another person or group because he believes it will result in a satisfying social effect which may be the attainment of rewards or avoidance of punishments under the other's control. Identification occurs when an individual adopts the role of another. It differs from compliance in that the individual is not primarily motivated to please the other but to meet the other's own role expectations since they fit the individual's self image. Internalization occurs when an individual accepts influence because it is congruent with his value system. The reward is the content of the induced behavior.

Since internalization and identification involve rewards internal to the individual, these sources of social influence seem related to attitude. On the other hand, compliance involves an external reward since the individual assumes an actor's role, that is, a role not necessarily congruent with his internal values, in order to obtain an expected reward. Consequently, compliance may well be independent of attitude. However, Kelman holds that all three processes are present and interact in a given social situation and that the nature of the situation determines which particular process predominates and the type of interaction among them. Thus, some relationship between attitude and social compliance is expected with the strength of the relationship determined by the degree to which internalization and identification are present. In the intentions model such effects would be manifested in A_act whereas the social compliance dimension by itself, hereafter referred to as SC, seems independent from A_act. Thus, SC is posited as an independent variable form of social influence that is separable yet, in contrast to the additivity notion, related to A_act.

The notion of a separable influence variable based on external rewards also has some parallel with the development of Dulany's (1968) verbal response model from which Fishbein borrowed heavily in developing the Intention's Model. Dulany manipulated his variables in laboratory experiments that employed negative and positive reinforcers administered by an experimenter after subjects verbally responded to statements that were regarded as neutral in terms of the respondent's value system.

Research Objectives

In terms of social influence variables, social compliance (SC) should be directly related to its underlying structure (SNB_jMC_j) and behavioral intention (BI) should be directly related to social compliance (SC). Behavioral intention (BI) should be indirectly associated with social compliance (SC) underlying structure (SNB_jMC_j). That is, behavioral intention (BI) should be more strongly associated with social compliance (SC) than it is with social underlying structure (SNB_jMC_j).

Method

A series of simple and first order partial correlations were employed to test the variable associations following a method promulgated by Blalock (1968). In addition, the posited antecedent and independent variables were placed in the central equation in order to compare R²s and beta weight values where the relative strength of the predictors was assumed a priori.

Behavioral Intention Criterion and Sample. The behavioral intention criterion were young adult purchase intentions toward two major brands of toothpaste, Crest and Ultra Brite. It was a priori expected that since this product is privately purchased and consumed, attitudinal influences should be stronger than social influences for both brands (Bourne, 1957). However, since Ultra Brite promotional activities emphasize social interactions, social influences were expected to be relatively stronger for Ultra Brite than for Crest. The subjects were 97 undergraduate college students enrolled in the business college of a large southeastern university.

Operationalization of the model involved two steps. First, the salient outcomes and referents were identified. Second, instruments to measure the variables were developed.

Salient Outcomes and Referents. Salient outcomes and referents were determined with an elicitation technique (Ryan and Etzel, 1975). The notion behind this technique is not to identify a long list of belief statements but rather to identify only those that determine attitudes and social influence. The obtained free responses were content analyzed and separated into groups based on common meanings. Natural breaks in the frequency of mentioned items were used to separate salient from non-salient items. The salient attitudinal outcomes and normative referents are presented in Table 1.

Structural Components. A set of belief (B_i and NB_j), evaluation (a_i), and motivation to comply (MC_j) statements were constructed for each of the salient outcomes and referents by modifying the semantic differential approach used in the previous pilot study (Ryan, 1974). In order to obtain reliability estimates and avoid bias from adjective specificity, this approach used multiple item scales. The bipolar adjectives used in the B_i and NB_j scales involved the addition of two sets of adjectives to the single set commonly used in previous research (c.f., Jaccard and Davidson, 1972). The adjectives used in the a_i and MC_j scales involved the addition of two sets of adjectives from the Fishbein and Raven (1962) AB scale. In the present study, these instruments were modified by separating the adjectives with separate but similar statements and reversing the scale directions in order to minimize response set bias. For example:

Ultra Brite B₂

My purchase and use of Ultra Brite leads to whiter teeth:

improbable _____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:probable

My purchase and use of Ultra Brite causes tooth whiteness:

possible _____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:impossible

My purchase and use of Ultra Brite provides me with whiter teeth:

likely _____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:unlikely

All items were placed in the questionnaire so that none of the items indicating the same construct were adjacent. Bipolar (+3 to -3) summative scoring was used.

TABLE 1

ULTRA BRITE SALIENT OUTCOMES

Behavioral Intention, Attitude Toward the A_act, and Social Compliance. BI and A_act measures involved similar scaling and modifications as described above. However, in order to obtain operational distinction between A_act and SC, SC was operationalized with a 14 item Likert type, 7 point scale. In line with Kelman's reasoning, the social compliance statements referred to expected social rewards. The 14 statements approximated the following example:

My purchase and use of Ultra Brite because other people expect me to do so will cause these other people to reward me:

Strongly Agree ___: Agree___: Slightly Agree ___: Uncertain___: Slightly Disagree___: Disagree___: Strongly Disagree___:

An agree to disagree scale followed each of the 14 statements, eight of which referred to rewards and six to sanctions.

Reliability estimates, employing Cronbach's (1951) estimate of internal consistency, for all measures met acceptable standards (Nunnally, 1967) ranging from .61 to .98. This indicates that each instrument measured a single construct and suggests that beta weights in the central equation would not be attenuated due to A_act or SC measurement error.

Statistical Procedures. Direct associations were tested with simple correlations and indirect associations with partial correlations holding the proposed moderating variable constant. Correlation coefficient size indicated the magnitude of the association and Fishers Z transformation was used to test for statistical significance at the .05 alpha level. In order to support the proposed relationships, variables posited to have direct associations should produce positive, statistically significant correlations between their respective measurement scores. Indirectly linked variable correlations should lower in magnitude and become statistically insignificant when the moderator variable score is partialled out. Variables posited to have no relationship should produce statistically insignificant correlations between their respective measurement scores.

Findings and Discussion

TABLE 2

SIMPLE AND PARTIAL CORRELATIONS

TABLE 3

SIMPLE CORRELATIONS

Correlations testing the relationships among social influence and attitudinal variables are presented in Table 3. Correlation Sets 1 and 4 tested hypothesized associations. The positive statistically significant correlations in Set 4 support the associations between the independent variables A_act and SC. However, in Set 1 only the Crest correlation between the antecedent variables is significant and its value indicates the strength of the relationship was only moderate. This finding is unexpected, especially in view of the strong support for the independent variable relationship. It may be that the correlation of the two variable scores, each computed through the multiplication of non-ratio variable scores, may have attenuated these correlations.

Correlation Sets 2 and 3 tested hypothesized lack of associations among variables. The positive statistically significant correlations in both sets provide evidence disconfirming this hypothesis. In retrospect these findings are not surprising given the demonstrated collinearity between A_act and SC and the previous discussion concerning internalization. If certain specific sources of social influence are internalized it seems logical that these sources would become a part of attitude. This could happen, for example, if the focal person assumes a relevant other's expectation is congruent with his feelings or if a commonality of information about the product exists between the focal person and relevant others.

TABLE 4

BETA WEIGHTS AND R² ESTIMATES

Summary and Conclusions

The findings from this research are summarized diagrammatically in Figure 1. The clear cut findings concerning the attitudinal variables are congruent with a large body of research investigating the expectancy value approach to attitude and a smaller but growing body of knowledge regarding relationships among cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral intention variables. However, the findings concerning social influence variables and crossover effects were not straightforward and cannot be viewed within a framework provided by a body of research. The tentative evidence reported here constitutes the only support for the SC variable. More evidence is needed regarding SC measurement validity and applications across other products, brands, and groups.

FIGURE 1

A SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS

The latter suggestion is especially appropriate given the limited generalizability of the sample used in this research. Also, other independent forms of social influence have been hypothesized (Ahtola, 1975; Lutz, 1975c) in addition to SN. Empirical comparisons of these different approaches are yet to be made. Consequently, the specification of meaning for a social influence independent variable is not a settled issue.

Given the state of knowledge, the suggested relationships in Figure 1 concerning crossover and social influence variable relationships are best viewed as tentative suggestions to guide future research. It is hypothesized that the indirect paths between the antecedent and outcome variable, indicated by dotted and dashed lines, represent weaker relationships than the direct paths, indicated by solid lines. The associations in this direct and indirect network seem susceptible to empirical testing through the use of path analysis (Nygreen, 1971). However, the examination of associations is considered only a starting point rather than a complete investigation of what is proposed as a possible causal chain. Additional testing of causal order and lack of spuriousness would follow before causality could be supported or disconfirmed (Popper, 1959). Causal ordering, for example, could be tested with experimental design procedures outlined by Perreault and Darden (1975) that would consider the antecedent variables as factors and attitude, social compliance, and behavioral intention as multiple criterion variables.

More evidence supporting these notions would lead to a reduced form model since there are many variables in addition to those included that have been hypothesized to explain buyer behavior (Andreason, 1965; Nicosia, 1966; Howard and Sheth, 1969). However, there are two major advantages to the reduced form model. First, the relationships among variables are explicitly structured. Second, the level of abstraction allows the development of operational definitions for all variables. Consequently, the model can be shown to fit or not fit empirical regularities, a requirement of all good theories (Kaplan, 1964).

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