What Is Rational Behavior?

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), translated as "rational action theory", was proposed by American scholars Fishbein and Ajzen in 1975, and is mainly used to analyze how attitudes are conscious Influencing individuals' behaviors and paying attention to the process of attitude formation based on cognitive information, the basic assumption is that people are rational, and they will integrate various kinds of information to consider the meaning and consequences of their behaviors before making a certain behavior.

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), also translated as "rational action theory", was proposed by American scholars Fishbein and Ajzen in 1975, and is mainly used to analyze how attitudes are conscious Influencing individuals' behaviors and paying attention to the process of attitude formation based on cognitive information, the basic assumption is that people are rational, and they will integrate various kinds of information to consider the meaning and consequences of their behaviors before making a certain behavior.

Chinese name

Rational behavior theory

Foreign name

Theory of Reasoned Action, TRA

Applied discipline

psychology

Presenter

Fishbein and Ayez

Rational Behavior Theory

The theoretical model of TRA is as follows:

The theory holds that an individual's behavior can be reasonably inferred from the behavioral intention to a certain extent, and the individual's behavioral intention is determined by the attitude to the behavior and subjective criteria. Human behavioral intention is a measure of people's intention to engage in a specific behavior, and attitude is the positive or negative emotion that people have for engaging in a certain target behavior. It is based on the main beliefs about the outcome of an action and is important to this outcome. Estimated by the degree. Subjective norms (subjective criteria) refers to the degree of perception that people who think they have a significant impact on wanting to use the new system, the degree of individual trust in what others think they should do, and their level of motivation to be consistent with the opinions of others The decision. The combination of these factors results in behavioral intentions (inclinations), which ultimately leads to behavioral changes.

The theory of rational behavior is a general model. It proposes that any factor can only indirectly affect the use behavior through attitude and subjective criteria, which makes people have a clear understanding of the rational production of behavior. The theory has an important implicit assumption: people have the ability to fully control their behavior. However, in the organizational environment, the behavior of individuals is restricted by management intervention and external environment. Therefore, some external variables, such as situational variables and self-control variables, need to be introduced to meet the needs of research.

Development of Rational Behavior Theory

Ayez introduced perceptual behavior control variables and proposed Planned Behavior Theory (TPB), see Figure 1. The theory holds that behavioral intentions are influenced by perceived behavioral control in addition to being determined by attitudes and subjective criteria. Perceived behavior control is the degree to which an individual controls the behavior he is engaged in. It is determined by the beliefs of control and the factors that promote perception. Control beliefs are people's perceptions of their capabilities, resources, and opportunities, and perception drivers are estimates of how important these resources are.

Although the TRA and TPB models have achieved some success in predicting behavioral intentions and behaviors, they have strong limitations in the research of information technology adoption:

1. The belief factor in the theory is a general concept. It needs to be determined in advance in the application of specific technology adoption studies, which makes the practical application of the theory more complicated.

2. The impact of subjective criteria proposed by the theory on adoption behavior has not been fully confirmed in empirical research.