Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do Attitudes Form and Change?
Compare the review's selection criteria and treatment effects with the causal pathways proposed by Ajzen.
Why you’re reading it. Assess what an intervention adds beyond an attitude–behavior correlation.
A question to consider. If a program improves both plans to attend and actual library visits, how would you test whether improved transport rather than stronger intentions produced the visits?
Why this reading
Predicting action from intention differs from showing that an intervention changes both. This meta-analysis brings experimental evidence to a claim often supported with correlations.
Before you read
A standardized effect size expresses a difference relative to variability. A moderator changes the size of an association; a mediator is a proposed pathway through which an effect occurs. Combining studies does not remove their design limitations.
Read for
- Examine the requirement that an intervention significantly change intentions before entering the main analysis.
- Compare changes in intentions with later behavior and distinguish reports from other outcome measures.
- Inspect the evidence for mediation and the uncertainty in moderator analyses.
Consider afterwards
- An intervention changes intentions and behavior. What additional evidence would show that intention change caused the behavioral change?
Editorial context
The 47 selected tests do not represent all behavior-change interventions. Treatments can affect behavior through pathways besides reported intentions, as the authors acknowledge. Study-level moderators are not necessarily experimentally isolated. The review mainly concerns particular health behaviors and is a historical synthesis, not a current effectiveness ranking.