Contemporary Issues In Consumer Research For Fair Trade Consumption

Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behaviour models

Describe about the Contemporary Issues in Consumer Research for Fair Trade Consumption.

Attitudes can positively or negatively have an impact on the behavior of an individual. an individual may not be always be aware about his or her attitude or the impact it has on his behavior. An individual mostly has positive attitude towards work and co-employees that has an positive influence on those around them. An individual with a good attitude are usually noticeable in their behavior. Attitude and behavior interrelate in a different way based upon the attitude in question. Among psychologist, the relationship between attitude and behavior is somewhat divisive (Claiborne and Sirgy 2015).

It is sensible from the definition of attitude to presume that behavior will follow attitude attitudes can be infectious and this can influence the behavior of those around them. As a result, it is important for an organization to identify that is possible to manipulate the attitude of an individual as well as his or her behavior. The strength with which an attitude is held is often a good predictor of behavior. The powerful the attitude there is more probability that they should influence behavior. Attitudes that are formed on the basis of direct experience are more strongly held and manipulate behavior more as compared to attitudes formed on the basis of indirect experience (Oliver 2014).

The theory of reasoned action suggests that the behaviour of an individual is determined by the intention of the individual in order to perform the behaviour. It is mostly a theory that associates thoughts and behaviour. Icek Ajzen anticipated this concept in order to improve on the predictive power of the theory of reasoned action by comprising professed behavioural control. According to the theory of planned behaviour model, when an individual have time to plan how they are going react, the best predictor of that behaviour is intention of an individual.

The researchers of attitudes acts in response to the criticism related to whether attitudes always predict behavior. Attitudes mostly do a better job of forecasting behavior when both concepts are measured in an identical way. The measure of attitude is quite broad in comparison to the measure of behavior. The consistency related to attitude-behavior differs depending upon the topic that is being studied. In some areas, attitudes do an outstanding job in order to predict behavior however, in other areas they do not. Attitude of an individual, at one extreme towards a particular political candidate predicts whether that individual will or not vote for that candidate. An individual has a tendency to vote for the candidate they favor. At the other extreme, it has been found by researchers that some individuals have low degree of consistency towards donating blood. This indicates that there is a low relation between attitude and behavior and as a result, attitudes may not always help to predict behavior. It may be that a low relation may take place due to other factors that individual views as more imperative than their positive attitude. The behavior of donating blood may be much more complicated to perform than the effortless expression of attitude of an individual through activities like voting. Consistency between attitudes and behavior rely upon the strength of the attitude. However, an attitude varies in strength. A number of investigation have demonstrated that strong attitudes have more probability to predict behavior as compared to weak attitudes (De Charms 2013).

Attitudes may not always help to predict behavior

Differences among people also affect the consistency between attitude and behavior. In other words, research on the individuality factor called self-monitoring has established that the relation between attitudes and behavior is powerful for low self-monitors as compared to high self-monitors. There have been negative evidence related with attitude-behavior relation that have been published over years however; it was comparatively easier to dismiss every study by pointing to procedural errors. Attitudes are less steadily attached to the basic personality framework even though they always integrate the belief system. The outlook network of the individual also influences attitudes and hence it is subject to change from both sides (Bissing Olson et al. 2013).

The study of the attitude-behavior relationship is perplexed by the fact that while behavior is simply understood and a definition is easily agreed upon. The theories of attitudes do not apply equivalently to all individuals at all times. There are several mediator variables that can enhance the forecast behavior. The relationship between attitude and behavior are not one-sided but dialectical. Preceding behaviors can also form and strengthen attitudes and on the other hand, attitudes can alter in order to justify habitual behavior that is difficult to reverse. Attitudes can only predict behavior if strength of habit and other factors are reviewed. The following example will predict the fact clearly that attitudes may not always help to predict behavior (Kim and Ross 2015).

Aim: To examine the relationship between attitudes and behavior

Method: LaPiere travelled around America along with a Chinese couple and expected to meet bias due to anti Chinese feeling. At that time, prejudice against the individuals in Asia was extensive and there was no law against racial unfairness. They visited more than 184 restaurants and 67 hotels. However, after six months when they returned all the establishments that they visited was sent by a letter, asking whether they will accept Chinese guests. 

Results: The Chinese guests were only declined at one establishment that they visited however; they were treated very graciously. However, out of the 128 establishments that acted in response to the letter, 91 percent reported that they were not willing to accept guests from China.

Conclusion: The above story indicates that attitudes do not always predict behavior. Cognitive and affective elements of attitudes are not essentially articulated in behavior.

When attitudes are used to predict behavior, it would be impacted by diverse variables that include the methods of attitudes measurement. The attitudes measurement includes attitude strength, social norm and past experience. The relationship between behavior and attitude is not related in a one-to-one fashion. The models that mostly deal with the connection between attitudes and behavior are the logical action theory and the intended theory. These two theories are not in clash. The logical action theory was put forward with the believe that behavioral purpose is the result of the amalgamation of prejudiced norm and attitude towards the behavior and the behavioral purpose leads to the behavior (Kroenung and Eckhardt 2015).

Marketers and the failure of attitude to predict behavior

Marketers are mostly interested in the key causes of the failure of attitude in order to predict the behavior of the customers. Attitudes might fail to predict behavior of an individual if the cognitive involvement of the individual is not high. In that case, an individual might effectively make use of the information that will give rise to their attitudes. However, with low level of involvement, attitudes will not be strong enough and as a result, it will be less predictable. In other words, the attitude-behavior relationship is weak if the individuals are not able to resolve the discrepancy through amplification (Jaccard and Blanton 2014).

A human being is mostly considered as intelligent creatures and they expect causes to exist for their behavior. In order to determine whether attitudes predict behavior, it is imperative to understand which behavior and which attitudes. Measurement factors were always considered as a problem during the early attitude research. On the one hand, behavior is measured specifically however; attitude was measured in a rather general way. A general attitude is used to predict a general behavior. In other words, if an individual shows a positive attitude towards the environment, it is expected that the individual will have a combination of several behavior. The individual might recycle, drive a hybrid vehicle or install solar panels in his house. However, it will not be easier to predict which of those behaviors he will be performing. As a result, attitude not always predict behavior. This was one of the key problems that was associated with early research that was used to measure both attitudes and behavior. The four factors facilitate to have a very detailed information about the behaviors that is expected. The first factor is the action performed that refers to the precise behavior such as recycling or consuming locally grown food. The second factor is the target of the action that objects the behavior targets. When attitudes and behaviors are measured with the similar level of specificity. Situational factors help to determine how attitude predicts behavior. It is a situation that characterizes the situation of an individual and puts his behavior in question (Kehoe and Wright 2013).

In order to encourage the individuals, it is required to make use of the individuated circumstance that will encourage the individuals to focus on their internal states such as, attitudes, beliefs as well as values. Individuated circumstance leads the individuals to take more responsibility for their individual deeds and therefore it is less possible for an individual to become a part of an anonymous group in such kinds of circumstances. On the other hand, de-individuated circumstance leads to a circumstance that leads an individual to focus less on internal states such as attitudes and feelings. While participating in a group, an individual have a tendency to adopt the perspective of the group (Fazio and Olson 2014).

The attitude-behavior gap is puzzling and attitude towards racism is the place where mostly the gap is found. According to current investigation, it has been found that most individuals who assert not to be racist still have racist contained attitudes. The evolutionary viewpoint to behavior starts with an assumption that however an individual behaves is likely to be adaptive. In other words, the behavior has leaned over the ages to support human achievement in life, leaving more descendents. It has been found that the largest single cause of attitude-behavior gap is that the attitudes are adopted for communal causes. As a result, it mostly guides about what to say in a particular social circumstance rather than rules for definite practical decision-making (Schultz 2016).

The view of attitude-behavior gap in ethical consumption serves an imperative ideological function in order to help maintain precisely the kind of neoliberal market rationalities that ethical consumerism and its proponents want to change. In taking this approach, it is suggested that the moralization of expenditure choices through the gap further upholds damaging entrepreneurial capitalism rather than bringing about important social and political change. The ethical consumption attitude-behavior gap facilitates marketers and customers to hold on to confidence about capitalism. The attitude-behavior gap acts as internalized and individualized circumstances that sustain the belief in the customer as a sovereign actor with the power. The gap holds out the principle that capitalism has the ability to save the individuals from the social and economic destruction that capitalism is bringing out in its first place. On the other hand, the gap also brings the difference between a capitalism that is flawed and critical and one that creates a more just, sustainable and unbiased world. The misapprehension that requires to be maintained is that closing the morality gap will make a noteworthy difference to the destructiveness of the present system (Carrington, Neville and Whitwell 2014).

The prevalent failure of customers to put their ethical attitudes and ethical consumption into action is commonly referred to as the ethical consumption words, such as attitude-behavior gap and ethical consumption inconsistency. The factors that are underpinning the ethical consumption gap are acknowledged with the help of increasing body of promotion and customer academic research. The research widely considers four strategies in order to examine the ethical consumption misbehaviors of individual customers. The first strategy examines that attributes the experiential ethical consumption gap to the social appeal biases of individual customers who mostly exaggerate their ethical consumption intention in research contexts (Martin and Väistö 2016).

The second strategy assumes the stated ethical consumption purposes are authentic and explore how external factors and the cognitive procedures interior to the individual customer slow down the translation of moral purchase purposes into actual behavior. The third strategy explores the inner life worlds of individual customer to broadcast how multiple and competing identities hinders the purposes of the customers to consume ethically. The fourth and the last strategy examines that reveal the strategies that individual customer use to validate the gap in the behavior of the individuals after the fact (Valente 2015).

There are no such studies that are related to ethical-consumption attitude-behavior gap due to the fact that there is no distinction made between decision perspectives. The perspectives are either external to the market or are internal to the market that are arbitrated by the market logic. Capitalist consumerism is predicted on the reproduction of aspiration that the system of production can never completely satisfy. In order to treat the gap as pathology of sorts requires researches of the customers to hypothesize both a commonality of ethical outlook across contexts related to decision-making and a capacity of customers to contain their desire (Andorfer and Liebe 2012).

The research on the ethical consumption attitude behavior gap falls under two camps. According to the first camp, there is massive amount of attitudinal research that focuses on methodological and situational problems. Methodological flaws deals with the overreliance on quantitative survey formats that encourage rational queries rather than delving into everyday self-indulgent shopping causes. The second camp deals with interpretive and cross-disciplinary research that has entered the argument on the back of such developments (Moraes, Carrigan and Szmigin 2012).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the attitude-behavior gap acts as internalized and individualized circumstances that sustain the belief in the customer as a sovereign actor with the power. The relationship between attitude and behavior rose when researchers started measuring attitudes and behaviors with the similar level of specificity. There have been negative evidence related with attitude-behavior relation that have been published over years however; it was comparatively easier to dismiss every study by pointing to procedural errors. A behavioral area is a set of related behavior. The accessibility of attitudes is related to the significance of the attitude to the behavior for the individual. it can also be concluded that attitudes are less steadily attached to the basic personality framework even though they always integrate the belief system. Attitudes that are activated can only have an impact on behavior. On the other hand, highly accessible attitudes are more easily activated. It can also be concluded that the evolutionary viewpoint to behavior starts with an assumption that however an individual behaves is likely to be adaptive.

References

Andorfer, V.A. and Liebe, U., 2012. Research on fair trade consumption—A review. Journal of business ethics, 106(4), pp.415-435.

Bissing Olson, M.J., Iyer, A., Fielding, K.S. and Zacher, H., 2013. Relationships between daily affect and pro?environmental behavior at work: The moderating role of pro?environmental attitude. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(2), pp.156-175.

Carrington, M.J., Neville, B.A. and Whitwell, G.J., 2014. Lost in translation: Exploring the ethical consumer intention–behavior gap. Journal of Business Research, 67(1), pp.2759-2767.

Carrington, M.J., Neville, B.A. and Whitwell, G.J., 2014. Lost in translation: Exploring the ethical consumer intention–behavior gap. Journal of Business Research, 67(1), pp.2759-2767.

Claiborne, C.B. and Sirgy, M.J., 2015. Self-image congruence as a model of consumer attitude formation and behavior: A conceptual review and guide for future research. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 1-7). Springer International Publishing.

De Charms, R., 2013. Personal causation: The internal affective determinants of behavior. Routledge.

Fazio, R.H. and Olson, M.A., 2014. The MODE model: Attitude-behavior processes as a function of motivation and opportunity. Dual process theories of the social mind, pp.155-171.

Jaccard, J. and Blanton, H., 2014. The Origins and Structure of Behavior: Conceptualizing Behavior in Attitude Researo. The handbook of attitudes, 125.

Kehoe, R.R. and Wright, P.M., 2013. The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of management, 39(2), pp.366-391.

Kim, Y. and Ross, S., 2015. The Effect of Sport Video Gaming on Sport Brand Attitude, Attitude Strength, and the Attitude-Behavior Relationship. Journal of Sport Management, 29(6).

Kroenung, J. and Eckhardt, A., 2015. The attitude cube—A three-dimensional model of situational factors in IS adoption and their impact on the attitude–behavior relationship. Information & Management, 52(6), pp.611-627.

Martin, D.M. and Väistö, T., 2016. Reducing the Attitude-Behavior Gap in Sustainable Consumption: A Theoretical Proposition and the American Electric Vehicle Market. In Marketing in and for a Sustainable Society (pp. 193-213). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Moraes, C., Carrigan, M. and Szmigin, I., 2012. The coherence of inconsistencies: Attitude–behaviour gaps and new consumption communities. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(1-2), pp.103-128.

Oliver, R.L., 2014. Satisfaction: A behavioral perspective on the consumer. Routledge.

Pratkanis, A.R., Breckler, S.J. and Greenwald, A.G., 2014. Attitude structure and function. Psychology Press.

Schultz, S., 2016. Investigating Factors that Influence an Ecological Attitude-Behavior Gap among Oregonians (Doctoral dissertation, Oregon State University).

Valente, M., 2015. Ethical differentiation and consumption in an incentivized market experiment. Review of Industrial Organization, 47(1), pp.51-69.