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D Trafimow

Publications and source records attributed to D Trafimow.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

Condom use among US students: the importance of confidence in normative and attitudinal perceptions.

The author performed a study among U.S. undergraduates to test an earlier conclusion (D. Trafimow, 1994) that confidence in the correctness of one's perceptions of normative pressure to use a condom influences the correspondence between those perceptions and the intentions actually to perform the behavior. Consistent with previous findings (Trafimow), the participants' perceptions of normative pressure strongly predicted their intentions to use condoms only under conditions of extreme normative confidence. Otherwise, their attitudes were better predictors of their intentions to use condoms. In addition, 2 other variables (attitudinal confidence and perceived behavioral control) were found to be unimportant predictors of intentions. Results of a 2nd study suggest that behaviors performed by sexual partners and knowing the sexual partners affected the participants' normative confidence.

Adult↗

The accessibility of group memberships.

The authors performed 2 experiments to examine the accessibility of thoughts about group memberships (i.e., collective self-cognitions) relative to thoughts about traits, states, and behaviors (i.e., private self-cognitions). Few collective self-cognitions were accessible for the present participants from an individualist culture. Furthermore, collective self-cognitions were highly associated with each other in a self-structure. The findings were interpreted in terms of the two-baskets theory that private and collective self-cognitions tend to be stored relatively separately in memory (D. Trafimow, H.C. Triandis, & S.G. Goto, 1991).

Adolescent↗

Gender comparisons in the private, collective, and allocentric selves.

Researchers (e.g., M. B. Brewer & W. Gardner, 1996; H. C. Triandis, D. K. S. Chan, D. P. S. Bhawuk, S. Iwao, & J. P. B. Sinha, 1995) have suggested expansion of the standard model of individualism-collectivism to include people's close personal relationships in addition to their identification with in-groups. There has been considerable discussion of the hypothesis that women are more collective, interdependent, relational, and allocentric than men (e.g., S. E. Cross & L. Madson, 1997; Y. Kashima et al., 1995). In the present study, the authors used the Twenty Statements Test (M. H. Kuhn & T. McPartland, 1954) to examine gender differences in the self-concept by assessing the accessibility of private, collective, and allocentric self-cognitions. The U.S. women described themselves with more allocentric and more collective self-cognitions than did the U.S. men. Discussion focuses on the implications of those data for interpretation of other gender differences as well as for traditional models of individualism-collectivism.

Adult↗

Cognitive organization of favorable and unfavorable beliefs about performing a behavior.

Intentions to perform behaviors are influenced by beliefs about their consequences, but researchers have not addressed how such beliefs are cognitively organized. In 3 experiments, the authors tested the hypothesis that beliefs are organized according to whether they are favorable or unfavorable in regard to performing a behavior. In Experiment 1, a group of U.S. students first read a list of beliefs favorable and unfavorable to going to a vacation resort and then listed their beliefs about condom use. In Experiment 2, another group of U.S. students listed their beliefs about condom use. In Experiment 3, a 3rd group of U.S. students listed their beliefs about a novel behavior (asking the experimenter for candy). The results of all 3 experiments were consistent with the hypothesis that people cognitively organize their beliefs according to whether they are favorable or unfavorable to the behavior in question.

Attitude↗

Predicting back pain sufferers' intentions to exercise.

One important factor in reducing back pain is the performance of exercises prescribed by physicians during treatment. The present investigation was conducted to examine the correlates of an individual's intention to adhere to such prescriptions. On the bases of M. Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action and I. Ajzen's (1988) theory of planned behavior, attitudes, subjective norms, and 2 types of perceived behavioral control were measured in a sample of American patients. Attitudes and subjective norms failed to predict intentions to exercise in accordance with the physician's orders, but each of the perceived behavioral control measures did moderately well as an independent predictor and quite well when combined in a multiple regression approach.

Exercise↗

Some tests of the distinction between attitude and perceived behavioural control.

Although perceived behavioural control has recently become a popular variable for use in predicting behaviour or intention to behave, it is far from clear that this variable is theoretically distinguishable from attitude. Consequently, we performed some tests of the distinction between attitude and perceived behavioural control. In Expt 1, using participants from an American university, the semantic differential scales that have often been used to measure attitude and perceived behavioural control were submitted to factor analyses. Consistent with the distinction, a two-factor solution resulted in the attitude and perceived behavioural control items clearly loading on different factors. Further, Expt 2 demonstrated that the attitude factor predicts behavioural beliefs and does not predict control beliefs, but the reverse is true concerning the perceived behavioural control factor. Finally, in Expts 3-5, the beliefs presumed to underlie these two variables were cluster analysed. Consistent with the distinction, and paralleling findings obtained by Trafimow & Fishbein (1995), the order in which participants wrote down their beliefs exhibited significant clustering by belief type.

Adult↗

A comparison of updating and explanation as causes of the incongruity effect on person memory.

Information that is incongruent with a prior expectancy is remembered better than congruent information. Two explanations were investigated: (a) people attempt to explain incongruent information to understand it, and (b) people use incongruent information to update their expectancies. The common assumption in these two accounts is that the additional cognitive processing stimulated by incongruent information is responsible for the incongruity effect. In this study, U.S. students were explicitly requested to engage in one or the other of these processes. Although both processes resulted in an incongruity effect, there was a positive correlation between recall of expectancy-congruent and expectancy-incongruent items in the impression-updating condition but not in the other condition; those in the impression-updating condition showed greater expectancy change.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

The cognitive organization of sex and occupation stereotypes.

Two experiments were conducted to explore whether activating occupation stereotypes primes sex stereotypes or whether the reverse is more likely. A reaction time paradigm was used to distinguish between four alternative hypotheses about this issue. More specifically, subjects were exposed to sex-occupation or occupation-sex word pairs and asked to press one of two buttons depending upon their perceptions of the compatibility of the two words. Although consistent word pairs were responded to more quickly than inconsistent ones, varying the order in which the words were presented (sex first or occupation first) did not interact with this factor. This pattern of findings contradicts the widely held notion that there is an asymmetrical relationship between the two kinds of stereotypes.

Adult↗