The majority of people at risk from earthquakes do little or nothing to reduce their vulnerability. Over the past 40 years social scientists have tried to predict and explain levels of seismic hazard adjustment using models from behavioural sciences such as psychology. The present paper is the first to synthesise the major findings from the international literature on psychological correlates a...

To examine how well the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior predict condom use, the authors synthesized 96 data sets (N = 22,594) containing associations between the models' key variables. Consistent with the theory of reasoned action's predictions, (a) condom use was related to intentions (weighted mean r. = .45), (b) intentions were based on attitudes (r. = .58) and subjective no...

Argumentation can serve as an effective computational tool and as a useful abstraction for various agent activities and in particular for agent reasoning. In this paper we further support this claim by mapping a form of normative BDI agents onto assumption-based argumentation. By way of this mapping we equip our agents with the capability of resolving conflicts amongst norms, beliefs, desires a...

BACKGROUND Despite the well-established benefits of exercise during pregnancy, many women remain inactive. This may be related, in part, to women's beliefs about exercise in pregnancy, which are likely influenced by cultural background. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to compare attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control toward exercise, together with current levels o...

BACKGROUND The essential first step in the development of mass media health campaigns is to identify specific beliefs of the target audience. The challenge is to prioritize suitable beliefs derived from behavioral theory. The purpose of this study was to identify suitable beliefs to target in a mass media campaign to change behavior using a new method to estimate the possible effect size of a s...

We present a model of sequential choice which explains the emergence and persistence of unpopular, inefficient behavioral norms in society. We model individuals as naı̈ve Bayesian norm followers, rational agents whose subjective expected utility is increased by adherence to an established norm. Agents use Bayesian reasoning to combine their private preferences and prior beliefs with empirical ob...

OBJECTIVE Experimental research has revealed that short exposure to movie smoking affects beliefs about smoking in adolescents. In this study, we tested that association in children. METHODS In 2 experiments, participants were exposed to either a cartoon or family-oriented movie and randomly assigned to 20-minute segments with or without smoking characters. Data collection took place at eleme...

This study follows in the tradition of research into the relationship between teachers’ espoused beliefs and their enacted practices (Beswick, 2007; Skott, 2009; Thompson, 1984). It draws on a multiple case study of the whole class interactive phases of the mathematics lessons of six English primary teachers and the rationales they offer for their actions. The data yielded two distinct groups o...

Lay conceptions of personality change and continuity were examined in a sample of 112 undergraduates. Participants rated their personal change over 5 years (past or future), the change they perceived to be normative over 10-year age spans between 15 and 65, their beliefs about whether personality is fixed or malleable (‘‘lay theories’’) and their beliefs about the causes of personality change a...