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Reasoned Action Theory Essay

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The health issue of childhood obesity affects the well-being of many children and adolescents; however, applying Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein’s Theory of Planned Behavior directly reflects the behaviors of the parents and their influential habits on their children. Before the Theory of Planned Behavior, Ajzen and Fishbein developed the Theory of Reasoned Action based off of Donelson E. Dulany’s Theory of Propositional Control from 1968 (Boster, Shaw, Carpenter, & Massi-Lindsey, 2014). The Theory of Reasoned Action consists of four major elements, “normative social pressure (the subjective norm), affect (attitude toward the behavior), cognition (behavioral intention), and action (behavior)” (Boster et al., 2014, pp.700), which illustrates …show more content…

These intentions are “indications of how hard people are willing to try, of how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior” (Ajzen, 1991, pp. 181). Another factor that plays into this dynamic is whether an individual has volitional control over a behavior, meaning if a person has a choice to perform or not to perform this behavior (Ajzen, 1991). In addition, resources such as time, money, skills, and cooperation of others affects the ability of a person to perform the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Ajzen continues to describe the major factors of the model with the concept of perceived behavioral control, which together with intention, can be used to predict the achievement of a behavior (1991). An example given to explain how a constant intention or an effort leads to a successful behavior is two individuals who have the same strong intention of learning a new sport; even if both people share an equal desire to learn and both attempt, the individual who has more confidence will most likely succeed than the other individual who doubts his or her ability (Ajzen, 1991). All of these factors must be considered when predicting

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