To test the propositions that an attitude's ability to predict behavior is influenced by its temporal stability and by its accessibility in memory, 75 students were given direct or indirect experience with 6 video games and fun or skill instructions. They completed a computer-administered questionnaire before and after a free-play period. On the basis of Ajzen's (1988) theory of planned behavior, time played with each game was correlated with attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and intentions with respect to playing each game. Direct experience and fun instructions improved prediction of behavior, lowered latencies of responses to questionnaire items, and increased their temporal stabilities. The improved prediction of behavior was found to be mediated by the temporal stabilities of the predictor variables but, contrary to expectations, not by response latencies. It is suggested that more attention be given to the role of the stability of variables in attitude-behavior models.This article has benefited from comments on an earlier draft provided by Russell Fazio. We are also grateful to several anonymous reviewers who provided valuable suggestions for revisions.

This study investigates the relation between personality traits (Five-Factor-Model), personal (innovativeness, self-efficacy) and social (expectations or relevant reference groups) Internet related factors on the one hand and three motives (information, entertainment and, interpersonal communication) for going on-line among 122 adolescent Internet users on the other hand. The specificity hypothesis was supported in that Internet-specific personal and social factors together accounted for more variance of the 1nternet use motives than the global personality traits. With regard to the personality traits, neuroticism was found to be positively associated with the entertainment motive and with the interpersonal communication motive and extraversion was positively associated with the communication motive only. The potential of the three Internet motives to predict corresponding types of Internet activities was demonstrated. numbers were reported in Germany by Doll, Petersen, and Rudolf, with 7I percent Internet users for college students and 67 percent for high school students [6].Strongly divergent positions exist about the quality of Internet effects on daily life in general. Internet opponents emphasize that Internet use might cause people to become addicted to certain ways of Internet use [e.g, 7], to become isolated and cut off from genuine social relationships because of the communication with anonymous strangers [e.g., 8]. Internet supporters emphasize the educational usefulness of the Internet and argue that Internet use leads to more and better social relationships on the basis of common interests and by freeing people from the constraints of geography or isolation [9, l0].Because very different Internet-related activities can be employed by its users, the effects of Internet use on individuals, groups, and society should depend on their predominating Internet using types. Beside other possibilities, the Internet can be used for one-to-one or group communication, to research and gather information, for gaming and recreational purposes, and in order to produce and publish content in hypertext format. Interpersonal communication was found to be the dominant type of Internet use at home [11]. But social interactions via the Internet are different from traditional face-to-face interactions and do not have effects comparable to traditional social activities [12]. The emotional quality of relationships determines whether the social use of the Internet has positive or negative effects [7]. Close relationships with people via the Internet are associated with frequent contact, deeper feelings, and a broad interest domain and thus have been found to lead to better social and psychological outcomes such as more social support [13,14]. These relationships can serve as a buffer from lifes stresses, whereas weak Internet relationships characterized by superficial, infrequent contacts and easily broken bonds are useful only to receive information and contact social resources unavailable in people's actual environment.In a l...

Suggested modifications of the theory of reasoned action, which conceptualize the functional operation of the attitudinal and normative components in intention formation as separate, separate but contingent, and inseparable, are discussed. The model structures are examined with regard to the underlying psychological assumptions (psychological meaningfulness) and with regard to the required scale levels for the model variables, so that the results of model tests are invariant under the admissible scale transformations (formal meaningfulness). Using a procedure that combines “optimal scaling” with hierarchical regression analysis, the model variants are tested for women's (n= 89) and men's (n= 89) intentions to use contraceptive methods (pill, intrauterine device, condom, and natural methods) that require the model variables to be measured on interval scales. The results strongly favored the theory of reasoned action above the other model variants. Only for the subjective norm model was a better model fit found for a belief‐only model compared to the original product‐sum model. Gender differences were found with regard to the salient belief sets and the explanatory power of the normative model component.

Employing one correlational and two experimental studies, this paper examines the influence of attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) on a person's experience of equity in intimate relationships. While one experimental study employed a priming technique to stimulate the different attachment styles, the other involved vignettes describing fictitious characters with typical attachment styles. As the specific hypotheses about the single equity components have been developed on the basis of the attachment theory, the equity ratio itself and the four equity components (own outcome, own input, partner's outcome, partner's input) are analyzed as dependent variables. While partners with a secure attachment style tend to describe their relationship as equitable (i.e., they give and take extensively), partners who feel anxious about their relationship generally see themselves as being in an inequitable, disadvantaged position (i.e., they receive little from their partner). The hypothesis that avoidant partners would feel advantaged as they were less committed was only supported by the correlational study. Against expectations, the results of both experiments indicate that avoidant partners generally see themselves (or see avoidant vignettes) as being treated equitably, but that there is less emotional exchange than is the case with secure partners. Avoidant partners give and take less than secure ones.

Zusammenfassung Pädagogisches und fachdidaktisches Wissen gelten als zentrale kognitive Elemente professioneller Kompetenz von Lehrkräften. Der Erwerb entsprechenden Wissens soll daher möglichst schon im Lehramtsstudium erfolgen. Wie allerdings pädagogisches Wissen und fachdidaktisches Wissen zueinander in Verbindung stehen bzw. voneinander abgegrenzt werden können, ist konzeptionell wie empirisch noch weitgehend ungeklärt. Vor diesem Hintergrund bearbeitet der vorliegende Beitrag mithilfe standardisierter Wissenstests und auf der Basis von 889