First, I like to applaud Matt on his blog. (If you haven't read it yet, it's rather brilliant). Second, being that everyone seems to be writing their blogs about content from Chapter 5, I'm going to be a tad different and talk about the Theory of Planned Behavior.The theory of planned behavior states that attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived control to influence a person's actions (Ajzen, 1991). To set up why I want to chat about this, let's ponder a little about the people we've met in our lives.
Have you ever met someone that as soon as you hear them speak, you want to punch them in the gut? This reminds me of a quote from an unknown source, "Light travels faster than sound. That's why most people seem bright until you hear them speak." Almost every group has one, but is there a person in your group of friends that when they've been speaking for awhile you just want to say "shut the hell up", thus making them the Donny of your group?
I've figured that the reason we don't actually follow through with our attitudes about the people relates back to the theory of planned behavior. While our attitudes our usually strengthened by exposure (Fazio, 1990) and our perceived control of the situation might be high, we don't follow through with the thought of laying the smack down (physically or verbally) on the focus of our attitude because of the subjective social norms. I mean...how would it look if you were at dinner and at the table across from you someone randomly gets clocked in the face?
Following the flow of the theory of planned behavior, the intention of the behavior is weakened by the subjective social norm just enough to prevent the behavior from occurring. I guess that's why the comic up top appealed to me for this blog.
Well until next time...here are some LOLCats.
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179-211.
Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 75-109). New York: Academic Press.
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2 comments:
I wish things such as punching someone in the face were socially acceptable, but then I feel like I would get punched pretty often. That comic strip is hilarious. I must admit that there are several "Donny's" that I know of, and I wish that I could put the physical or verbal smack down on all of them. I think this should have been a PO blog. How awesome would it have been to pair this with a few slaps to some people here and there. Steven, way to slack.
Haha, actually there was a point in time where Matt and I employed "Stop: Shut the hell up" cards into our group conversations. We had to stop using them due to some foreseen responses. I could bring an example to class if you'd like.
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