ABSTRACT
Health promotion campaigns are often aimed at changing beliefs or knowledge on the assumption that such changes are necessary to bring about a change in behaviour. Unfortunately, changes in awareness, attitudes, beliefs and knowledge far from guarantee changes in behaviour, although they may be an important rst step in such a process. Although any inference of a causal link between beliefs and behaviour cannot usually be sustained, it does seem reasonable to assume that beliefs and attitudes will have some inuence on our actions. Indeed, such an assumption has occupied social psychologists for many years in health research (Conner and Norman, 1996; Stroebe and Stroebe, 1995). A number of theoretical models have been proposed that attempt to explain the role of attitudes in human behaviour. This chapter, therefore, outlines the major integrating theories in health-related attitudes, and reports research ndings that have a bearing on physical activity behaviours. Specically, in this chapter we aim to:
● dene and delimit the attitude construct; ● briey overview the early descriptive approach to the study of physical activity attitudes; ● summarise the Health Belief Model – a foundational model on health beliefs and
attitudes – and research ndings from physical activity; ● review the theoretical foundations and contemporary physical activity research of the
Theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behaviour; ● investigate the intention-behaviour gap and ways of closing this gap.
