Self-predictions overweight strength of current intentions [An article from: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
We suggest that people's predictions of their future behavior overweight the strength of their current intentions, and underweight situational or contextual factors that influence the ease with which intentions are translated into action. As expected by this account, we find that self-predictions closely follow ratings of current intention strength, and that the actual probability of the behavior being predicted does not increase with intention strength to the extent implied by self-predictions (Study 1). We also find that manipulations designed to strengthen intentions to carry out a behavior have a larger impact on self-predictions than on the behavior being predicted (Studies 1 and 2), whereas a manipulation designed to influence the ease with which intentions are translated into behavior has a larger impact on actual behavior than on self-predictions (Study 2). Observers' predictions of another's behavior do not follow the same pattern (Study 3).