Michael Hennessy, research analysis manager at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was lead author of a paper, “Differentiating between precursor and control variables when analyzing reasoned action theoriesm,” co-written with APPC’s Amy Bleakley, Martin Fishbein, and Dan Romer, and colleagues Larry Brown (Brown University), Ralph DiClemente and Laura Salazar (Emory University), Robert Valois (University of South Carolina), and Michael P. Carey and Peter A. Vanable (Syracuse University). The paper appears in the the journal AIDS and Behavior (February 2010).
Article abstract:
This paper highlights the distinction between precursor and control variables in the context of reasoned action theory. Here the theory is combined with structural equation modeling to demonstrate how age and past sexual behavior should be situated in a reasoned action analysis. A two wave longitudinal survey sample of African-American adolescents is analyzed where the target behavior is having vaginal sex. Results differ when age and past behavior are used as control variables and when they are correctly used as precursors. Because control variables do not appear in any form of reasoned action theory, this approach to including background variables is not correct when analyzing data sets based on the theoretical axioms of the Theory of Reasoned Action, the Theory of Planned Behavior, or the Integrative Model.
