Understanding Responses to Social Issues Communication: a Values-centered Approach to Attitudinal Model Explanations of Individual Behavior

This title argues that analyses including values embedded in attitudinal models can contribute to theory development and explain human behavior on social issues. Since values have been established to be a key determinant for the selection of the goals toward which human beings strive and regulate the manner in which striving takes place, it is useful to include them in attitudinal models typically used to explain a belief-behavior relationship. Simply put, having their values compromised, individuals holding opposing values may be reluctant to comply with the message con-tent. We chose as an illustration, the intent to recycle household waste. Given that the above reasons suggest that recycling intent includes fundamental factors in actual decision-making, it lends itself to an exploration of a values- attitude-behavioral intention chain. The analysis should be especially useful to professionals in social marketing fields, such as governmental or non-profit communication professionals.