How Priming the Private Self or Collective Self Affects the Relative Weights of Attitudes and Subjective Norms

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of the private self and the collective self affects the relative weights given to attitudes and subjective norms when forming a behavioral intention. The results of Experiment 1 indicate that increasing the accessibility of the private self caused participants to place more weight on attitudes than subjective norms but that increasing the accessibility of the collective self caused participants to place more weight on subjective norms than on attitudes. Experiments 2 and 3, using a subtle priming procedure, replicated this pattern of results. In addition, the findings of Experiment 3 provided direct evidence for the differential priming of the two self-concepts. Hence, the data suggest an intimate connection between the accessibility of the private and collective selves and whether people use attitudes or subjective norms to make behavioral intentions.