Attitude Organization and the Attitude-Behavior Relation. A Critique of Bagozzi and Burnkrant's Reanalysis of Fishbein and Ajzen

In a 1979 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, Bagozzi and Burnkrantreanalyzed data previously reported by Fishbein and Ajzen (1974)on attitude-behavior relations. The purpose of this article is to reexamine the empirical tests reported by these authors concerning the convergent and nomological validity of the multicomponent and single-component models of attitude. Specifically, we demonstrate that: (a) Although Bagozzi and Burnkrant's two-factor model cannot be rejected on the basis of the attitude data alone, there are nevertheless other plausible alternative models that are conceptually consistent with the single-factor, one-component representation of attitude; and (b) when it comes to predicting behavior, however, there is much to be said for the single-factor, one-component model, and Bagozzi and Burnkrant's conclusion about the relative strengths of the affective and cognitive components needs to be reexamined.