Message—Attitude—Behavior Relationship

Book excerpt: Message-Attitude-Behavior Relationship explores the relationship between messages, attitudes, and behaviors. Emphasis is on alternative conceptualizations of various message strategies, cognitive and information processing models, and their relevance to the study of behavior. Innovative mathematical models are discussed to highlight stochastic and deterministic mathematical operators case in coextensive, sequential, and multidimensional arrays of systems state. Message strategies are cast in terms of social, psychological, and information processing constructs. Comprised of 11 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the research tradition dealing with messages, attitudes, and behaviors. The following chapters provide in-depth justification, supported by data analysis, for the use of various theoretical and methodological approaches to the message-attitude-behavior relationship. An atomized, stochastic model of the behavioral effects of message campaigns is then described, along with the foundations of cognitive theory and a constructivist analysis of the relationship between attitudes and behavior. An information-processing explanation of attitude-behavior inconsistency is also outlined. The link between mental states and social action is analyzed with respect to Ludwig Wittgenstein's 1953 book Philosophical Investigations. This monograph should be a valuable resource for both social and behavioral scientists engaged in behavioral research.