Women's Decision-Making And Factors Affecting Their Choice Of ...

normative factor. The individual's attitude towards the behaviour is a function of
the belief that the behaviour will lead to a certain outcome, along with the
importance placed upon that outcome by the individual. The social normative
factor emphasises the influence of the social environment, and the person's
immediate reference group upon behaviour (Kronenfeld and Glik 1991). Risk
perception as a construct could be seen as part of the attitudes toward performing
a health related behaviour in TRA (Kronenfeld and Glik 1991). Risk perception
together with the normative beliefs predicts the intention to behave. The theory of
reasoned action approach, therefore, attempts to explain behaviour, unlike the
health belief model that contains explicit risk belief components (Kirscht 1989).
Social learning theory (SLT), also known as social cognitive theory
(Bandura 1977) is the third component in the precaution adoption process. The
SLT argues that expectancies and incentives determine behaviour. Three types of
expectancies are isolated: those related to environmental cues; those about the
consequences of one's own action; and those about one's competence to perform
the behaviour needed to influence the outcomes (self-efficacy). Incentives, on the
other hand help to regulate behaviour, but only if the consequences are interpreted
and understood by the individual. In the health field, social learning theory
emphasises the incentives to act in a given situation, and the balance of immediate
incentives against the balance of more distant ones (Kirscht 1989). For example,
the balance of the immediate gratification of smoking could be balanced against
the distant gratification of longer life if one stops smoking.
The precaution adoption process (Weinstein 1980; Weinstein 1982;
Weinstein 1988) combines the above approaches in an attempt to understand why
people adopt or fail to adopt precautions. Weinstein (1980) argues that people
demonstrate unrealistic optimism, whereby they believe that negative events are
34