Behavioral Science Dictionary

Attitude–behavior gap

Also known as: Value–action gap

Social Influence

What people say they believe or intend often fails to predict what they actually do.

What it means

The attitude–behavior gap is the frequently observed discrepancy between people's stated attitudes, values, or intentions and their actual behavior. Stated intent predicts behavior better than its reputation suggests — but shifting it moves behavior far less than that predictive link implies, so endorsing a goal buys much less action than it appears to promise. It is why so many people who say they want to eat healthily, save more, or buy sustainably do not consistently do so. Several forces open the gap: attitudes are general while behaviors are specific and situational, competing motives and habits intervene, and good intentions are derailed by friction, forgetting, and present bias in the moment of action. Theories of planned and reasoned behavior treat intention as the proximal cause of action, and intentions do correlate substantially with later behavior (r ≈ .53); but experiments that actually manipulate intention find a medium-to-large shift in intention yields only a small-to-medium shift in behavior, and some researchers argue this thin causal evidence is grounds to retire the theory. The remainder is hostage to context and self-regulation. Closing the gap is the central practical problem of applied behavioral science, addressed less by changing minds than by easing implementation—cues, defaults, plans, and removing friction. It matters because persuasion that shifts attitudes without shifting behavior achieves nothing.

Why the gap opens

The gap is lopsided, and the shape of it is the point. Sheeran and Webb locate it almost entirely in inclined abstainers — people who form an intention and then do not act on it. Disinclined actors, who act without ever intending to, are rare. So the useful question is never why attitude and behavior diverge in general, but why a formed intention stalls. Some of the answer is measurement: Ajzen and Fishbein's compatibility principle holds that an attitude predicts a behavior well only when the two correspond on target, action, context and time, and a general value ("I support sustainability") is being asked to forecast a specific act (buying this detergent, this Tuesday, at this price). The rest is volitional. Getting started fails through forgetting and missed opportunities; staying on track fails through temptation and habits that fire from situational cues and bypass intentional control altogether.

What the evidence shows

Correlational evidence looks encouraging. Kraus's meta-analysis of 88 studies put the average attitude-behavior correlation at r = .38, and Sheeran's synthesis of ten earlier meta-analyses, 422 studies in all, found intentions correlate with later behavior at r = .53. But prediction is not leverage. Webb and Sheeran meta-analyzed 47 experiments that actually manipulated intention and found that a medium-to-large shift in intention (d = 0.66) produced only a small-to-medium shift in behavior (d = 0.36). That asymmetry is the finding practitioners should carry. It is also why Sniehotta and colleagues argued the theory of planned behavior should be retired: it performs well in cross-sectional surveys while offering thin causal evidence that moving its constructs moves what people do. The argument is contested; Ajzen answered it in print.

How much of the gap is measurement

Part of the gap is not weakness of will but a bad instrument. Kormos and Gifford compared self-reported pro-environmental behavior with objective measures — meter readings, observation, weighed recycling — across 15 studies and 6,260 people. The correlation was r = .46, conventionally large yet leaving roughly four fifths of the variance in self-reports unaccounted for by what anyone actually did. Social desirability, faulty recall and the zero cost of answering inflate the attitude side of the ledger before any behavior is attempted. The founding study has the same problem in reverse: as critics including Dockery and Bedeian note, LaPiere's questionnaire asked about Chinese people in the abstract, and whoever answered may not have been the person who served his travelling companions. His real target was the survey, not the attitude.

Using it in practice

Treat stated intent as a weak signal and design for the moment of action instead. If-then plans specify a cue and a response in advance ("if it is Monday at eight, then I walk to the station"); Gollwitzer and Sheeran's meta-analysis found they add about d = 0.65 over goal intentions alone, largely by handing control to the situation rather than to resolve. Monitoring helps more modestly: Harkin and colleagues found that large increases in progress monitoring (d = 1.98) moved behavior only d = 0.40. So the order runs: measure revealed behavior rather than survey intent, remove friction, then plan. Persuasion is a last resort, not a first. Reviewing the green-consumption literature, ElHaffar and colleagues reach much the same conclusion.

Examples

Surveys show large majorities favor environmentally friendly products, yet their market share remains small because the favorable attitude rarely survives contact with price, habit, and convenience.

Almost everyone who joins a gym in January intends to go three times a week; by February most of those memberships quietly pay for a building the member no longer enters.

People say they care deeply about their privacy, then hit 'Accept all' to reach the recipe, because the stated value never survives the two seconds it costs to act on it.

Managers rate diversity as a top priority in the annual engagement survey, then fill the next opening from the same referral network, because the priority is annual and the shortlist is due Thursday.

Patients tell the clinic they intend to finish the antibiotic course, then stop once symptoms fade. The intention was formed in the consulting room; the pills are taken in a kitchen, unsupervised.

First described in Foreshadowed by LaPiere (1934); central to Ajzen's theory of planned behavior.

Key references

  1. ElHaffar, G., Durif, F., & Dubé, L. (2020). Towards closing the attitude-intention-behavior gap in green consumption: A narrative review of the literature and an overview of future research directions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 275, 122556. doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122556
  2. Sheeran, P., & Webb, T. L. (2016). The intention–behavior gap. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(9), 503-518. doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12265
  3. Kormos, C., & Gifford, R. (2014). The validity of self-report measures of proenvironmental behavior: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 359-371. doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.09.003
  4. Sniehotta, F. F., Presseau, J., & Araújo-Soares, V. (2014). Time to retire the theory of planned behaviour. Health Psychology Review, 8(1), 1-7. doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.869710
  5. Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 249-268. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.249
  6. Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84(5), 888-918. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.84.5.888
  7. Kraus, S. J. (1995). Attitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analytic review of the empirical literature. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(1), 58-75. doi.org/10.1177/0146167295211007
  8. Sheeran, P. (2002). Intention-behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review. European Review of Social Psychology, 12(1), 1-36. doi.org/10.1080/14792772143000003
  9. Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
  10. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198-229. doi.org/10.1037/bul0000025
  11. Dockery, T. M., & Bedeian, A. G. (1989). "Attitudes versus actions": LaPiere's (1934) classic study revisited. Social Behavior and Personality, 17(1), 9-16. doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1989.17.1.9
  12. Ajzen, I. (2015). The theory of planned behaviour is alive and well, and not ready to retire: A commentary on Sniehotta, Presseau, and Araújo-Soares. Health Psychology Review, 9(2), 131-137. doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2014.883474
  13. LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. actions. Social Forces, 13(2), 230-237. doi.org/10.2307/2570339

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