Theory of Planned Behavior

Icek Ajzen

First proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) is today perhaps the most popular model for the prediction of social behavior. It has its foundation in Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen's theory of reasoned action, which was developed in response to observed lack of correspondence between general social attitudes and actual behavior. Fishbein and Ajzen formulated the principle of compatibility, which stipulates that predictive validity is only obtained when attitude and behavior are assessed at equivalent levels of generality or specificity. General attitudes toward racial or ethnic groups, policies, or institutions fail to predict specific behaviors directed at these objects because of a lack of compatibility. By turning the focus from general attitudes toward the object of a behavior to attitudes toward the behavior itself, the principle of compatibility became a cornerstone of the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior. However, the TPB goes ...

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