The importance of subjective norms on intentions to perform health behaviors

Trafimow & Finlay (1996) employed between- and within-subjects analyses to show that people, as well as behaviors, can be under attitudinal or normati ve control. Using both types of analyses, Finlay, Trafimow & Jones (1997) p rovided evidence that subjective norms are particularly important in the he alth domain. The current research compares health and domain general behavi ors to show that people intend to perform health behaviors that have relati vely large subjective norm beta weights more than those with smaller normat ive beta weights. Also, people whose behaviors are generally under normativ e control intend to perform more healthful behaviors than do people whose b ehaviors are generally under attitudinal control. These results were not fo und using domain-general behaviors.