Message-Attitude-Behavior Relationship: Theory, Methodology, and Application

For many years, there has been a need in the social and behavioral sciences for a single volume providing a precise and careful treatment of axiomatic, causal processes, and sets-of-laws approaches to theory construction. In this volume, we have brought together applications of stochastic, path analytic, and multidimensional scaling research methodologies to advance understanding of one of the behavioral sciences' most troublesome problems: the defining of the relationship between messages, attitudes, and behaviors. Specifically, the material presented here has important implications for ongoing controversies in communication, psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology regarding the relationship of alternative methods of theory construction and mathematical modeling techniques. This volume will advance understanding of alternative conceptualizations of various message strategies, cognitive and information processing models, and their relevance to the study of behavior. Social scientists engaged in behavioral research will find this comparative and integrative approach both interesting and powerful.