Predicting intentions from attitudes: A reasoned action approach to religious ritual

The theory of planned behavior (TPB: Ajzen, 1991) has been used extensively to predict people's intentions to perform a wide range of behaviors (Ajzen&Fishbein, 2005). However, this model has been applied to predicting religious and cultural behaviors in only two published studies (Giles&Cairns, 1996, Gorsuch&Wakeman, 1991). The current study seeks to apply the TPB to expand the understanding of Family Purity, a practice that governs the intimate life of an observant Jewish couple (Ribner, 2003), but has been subjected to very little empirical research (Guterman, 2006). Using the TPB, this study seeks to understand what factors determine how strictly a person chooses to observe this ritual, as well as the factors underlying these choices. Participants (N=317) were recruited through the internet to complete an online survey regarding Family Purity. Participants were self-identified married Jewish women. A smaller survey was distributed to rabbis (N=12), who rated the stringency of religious behaviors. Results of this survey were used to compute a statistical weight in analyses. Analyses revealed that the TPB was statistically significant in predicting intention to observe Family Purity. However, only two factors in the model -- attitudes and subjective norms -- were found to be significant; no statistical difference in the contribution of attitudes and subjective norms to the prediction of intentions was observed. As predicted, behavioral beliefs were highly correlated with attitudes. Findings support the utility of the TPB in predicting this religious ritual, although the model accounted for less variance in this behavior than is reported in meta-analyses, perhaps indicating a limit to its usefulness when predicting religious ritual. Subjective norms, a factor often thought to be the weakest of the three predictors, was found to contribute as much as attitudes to the prediction of intentions, indicating the continued usefulness of this factor in the theory.