What it shows
A fuller version of Ajzen’s model, with the beliefs behind each antecedent. Behavioral beliefs produce the attitude toward the behavior, normative beliefs produce the subjective norm, and control beliefs produce perceived behavioral control.
The rest is the standard model: the three antecedents lead to intention, intention leads to behavior, and perceived behavioral control has a direct, dashed path to behavior.
How to read it
Read it left to right: beliefs, then antecedents, then intention, then behavior.
Each kind of belief feeds exactly one antecedent.
The line key matches the simpler model: plain arrows for influence, curved two-headed arrows for correlation and a dashed arrow for the direct path.
The constructs
- Behavioral beliefs → attitude toward the behavior.
- Normative beliefs → subjective norm.
- Control beliefs → perceived behavioral control.
- Attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control → intention → behavior, with a dashed direct path from perceived behavioral control to behavior.
- Source: Ajzen (1991). The model follows the paper’s Figure 1; the beliefs come from its section “Beliefs and the antecedents of behavior”. Actual behavioral control, which appears in Ajzen’s later versions of the diagram, is not drawn.
Ways to use it in teaching
When students design a questionnaire, each kind of belief points to its own set of items.
Compare it with the simpler diagram and discuss which a framework chapter needs.
For a behavior in their field, students write one example belief of each kind.
To see how a theory like this becomes the framework of a study, read our theoretical framework examples.
Sources
Ajzen, I. (1991), "The theory of planned behavior", Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50(2): 179–211, doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T, Figure 1 and the section "Beliefs and the antecedents of behavior".
