EGOCENTRISM, MESSAGE EXPLICITNESS, AND AIDS MESSAGES DIRECTED TOWARD ADOLESCENTS - AN APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF REASONED ACTION

In the context of health promotion campaigns, the present study explor ed how adolescents process information in making decisions about behav ior which could put them at risk for contracting HIV. The theory of re asoned action was employed as a framework. Two manifestations of adole scent egocentrism were studied: personal fable (uniqueness) was propos ed to predict attitudes toward behavior; imaginary audience (focus on others) was proposed to predict subjective norms. This study also inve stigated the effects of a message variable, explicitness. Two levels o f explicitness, high and low, were manipulated in two messages. Adoles cent participants (N = 492) filled out questionnaires and read and rat ed a randomly assigned message. Relations among variables in the model s differed in the two message conditions. Additional findings pertaini ng to the nature of the individual variables studied for example the n ature of adolescent egocentrism, are presented Implications and direct ions for future research in the theory of reasoned action, message exp licitness, adolescent egocentrism, and AIDS education campaigns are di scussed.