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The Theory of Reasoned Action
Article in Theory & Psychology · August 2009
DOI: 10.1177/0959354309336319
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The Theory of Reasoned Action
A Case Study of Falsification in Psychology
David Trafimow
NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT. Although Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of reasoned action has
been a leading theory in social psychology for the last few decades, it
also has been an object of criticism for much of that period and subject
to definitional issues about what an attitude is. One of the main recent
criticisms is that the theory is not falsifiable. In contrast, I argue not only
that the theory makes risky predictions, and hence is falsifiable under
reasonable standards of falsification, but also that at least one of its
assumptions has actually been falsified. This specific argument is used
to set up a more general argument that psychologists tend to subscribe to
a naïve falsificationist viewpoint, invalidly use this viewpoint to evaluate theories, and thereby prevent important empirical research from
being performed.
KEY WORDS: affect, attitudes, auxiliary assumptions, case study, cognition,
falsification, risky predictions, subjective norms, theory of reasoned action
One of the most extensive and influential research programs in the history of
social psychology was spawned by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen’s theory
of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein, 1963, 1967, 1980;
Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and its descendants such as Ajzen’s (1988, 1991)
theory of planned behavior. A cursory search of the citation index reveals
thousands of citations for each of these theories, thereby demonstrating that
this program of research has been extremely successful in terms of its influence on the field of psychology.
However, the fact that the theory of reasoned action has been influential
does not necessarily mean that it is a good theory. It has been subjected to
criticisms by several authors (e.g., Greve, 2001; Liska, 1984; Miniard &
Cohen, 1981; Ogden, 2003; Smedslund, 2000). The most important criticism,
THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY VOL. 19 (4): 501–518
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DOI: 10.1177/0959354309336319 http://tap.sagepub.com
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and the one that inspired the present article, is that the theory of reasoned
action is not falsifiable (see Greve, 2001; Ogden, 2003; Smedslund, 2000, for
recent examples). Because a theory must be falsifiable to be a good theory, if
the theory of reasoned action is not falsifiable, then it is not a good theory
regardless of how many researchers believe it to be useful.
With this point in mind, I have two goals. The first goal is specific to the theory of reasoned action: I wish to examine whether or not it is falsifiable under
reasonable criteria for falsification. In presenting my analysis, I will argue that
(a) it has survived some potentially rather destructive tests, (b) in some cases
it actually has been falsified, and (c) research emanating from the theory of
reasoned action can be used to falsify other theories that, in turn, also have
been criticized on falsificationist grounds. The second goal is more general and
stems from an observation that researchers who are not psychologists often
accuse psychologists of proposing theories that are not falsifiable. Even where
only psychologists are concerned, they often accuse theories that have survived for a long period of time as being unfalsifiable (see Betsch & Pohl, 2002;
Gannon, 2002; Hellberg, 2006; McGuire, 2006; Roth, Wilhelm, Pettit, &
Meuroet, 2005, for a few recent examples not pertaining to the theory of reasoned action). It is my belief that psychologists have not thought through the
issue of falsification in a sufficiently critical manner and that accusations of
unfalsifiability would be much less common if they did so. Worse yet, I believe
that much research of potential value is not performed because researchers
blindly assume that the relevant theories are not falsifiable and consequently
conclude that the research is impossible. So my second and more general goal
is to stimulate researchers to think more critically about falsification.
Clearing Out the Philosophical Underbrush
Although the notion of falsification as an important criterion for evaluating theories has had a long history in the philosophy of science, the concept became
especially widespread because of the writings of Sir Karl Popper (e.g., 1959,
1963, 1972, 1983). At the risk of oversimplifying Popper’s argument, I will
reduce it down to its bare essentials. Suppose one has a theory (T) and makes a
prediction (O) that follows from it. Does confirming O prove T to be true?
Obviously, this is not so, as can be seen from the following invalid syllogism.
It is invalid because it commits the crime of affirming the consequent; the
observation could be true for some reason other than the truth of the theory.
{1} If T then O
{2} O
{3} Therefore T (invalid conclusion)
In contrast, if the observation does not come out, one can validly draw a conclusion about the falsity of the theory by the logic of Modus Tollens as follows.
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{1} If T then O
{2} Not O
{3} Therefore not T
Thus, if one attempts to prove a theory to be true by experiment, then one necessarily commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, whereas if
one wishes to disprove a theory by experiment, one can use the valid logic of
Modus Tollens. Therefore, Popper urged researchers to try to disprove theories rather than to try to prove them. But if one wishes to disprove theories,
then a prerequisite for doing so is that the theories make predictions that
might not be true. In short, the theories must be falsifiable.
Of course, as Popper was well aware, matters are not this simple. The complexity was described particularly effectively by his student, Imre Lakatos
(1978). According to Lakatos, experimental predictions never come only from
a theory; they come from a combination of a theory and assumptions that
are outside the theory, which he termed auxiliary assumptions. Consider,
for example, predictions about the velocities and positions of the planets that
have been made from Newton’s Laws of Motion. To make such predictions,
it is not only necessary to have a theory such as that proposed by Newton, but
it is also necessary to make auxiliary assumptions about the current positions
of the planets and their speeds, and to make various other assumptions about
the presence or absence of additional astronomical bodies (and their positions, speeds, masses, etc.). Consequently, if obtained data contradict a theory, it is not necessary to conclude that the theory is wrong because the
problem may reside in one or more of the auxiliary assumptions (Duhem,
1906/1954; Lakatos, 1978; Meehl, 1990, 1997; Quine, 1953/1980). The possibility of blaming an observational failure on one or more auxiliary assumptions rather than the theory means that the observational failure does not have
the power to unequivocally doom the theory.
The Lakatosian argument can be illustrated easily with the following syllogism, where A1, A2, and so on, refer to auxiliary assumptions.
{1} If (T & A1 & A2 & … An) then O
{2} Not O
{3} Therefore, not (T & A1 & A2 & … An) = not T or not A1 or not A2 or
… not An
Given that one appreciates how auxiliary assumptions complicate theory falsification, this appreciation does not, by itself, strongly imply that scientists should
not be concerned with falsification. It is possible to argue that Lakatosian difficulties are just that—difficulties—and the fact that something is difficult does
not mean that it should not be attempted. Moreover, even though the necessity
of having auxiliary assumptions causes absolute falsification to be impossible
to attain, it might be possible to have less stringent criteria and argue for some
kind of “reasonable” falsification that would be possible to attain. Even if the
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goal is reasonable falsification instead of absolute falsification, this goal is
nevertheless out of the question if one’s theory is not, in principle, capable of
being falsified. Thus, Popper’s falsification argument retains much of its force
despite the fact that auxiliary assumptions preclude the possibility of absolute
falsification (see Meehl, 1990, 1997; Trafimow, 2003).
But auxiliary assumptions complicate falsification in another way that, to
my knowledge, has not been addressed in the psychological literature. To
understand the complication, let us ask a simple question: How can one determine whether a theory is falsifiable? The way to do this is to attempt to make
predictions from the theory and see if these predictions have the possibility,
at least in principle, of being shown to be wrong. But we have already seen
that it is necessary to include auxiliary assumptions in the process of determining what the predictions might be. Therefore, to determine whether a theory is falsifiable, it is necessary to specify not only the theory but also a set
of auxiliary assumptions to combine with the theory. If the result of this combination is one or more predictions that might be wrong, then the theory is
clearly falsifiable (unless one wishes to disallow one or more of the auxiliary
assumptions). More importantly, however, if the result of this combination is
a failure to derive a testable prediction, we do not have a strong case that the
theory is unfalsifiable. It is possible that the theory would make testable predictions if it were combined with different auxiliary assumptions. Thus, to
unambiguously deem a theory to be unfalsifiable, one must try out all possible combinations of auxiliary assumptions in conjunction with the theory and
show that, in every case, the resulting prediction cannot be tested, even in
principle. To my knowledge, this has never been done in the history of science.
On the contrary, there are many theories that were thought to be impossible
to test at one time and found to be easy to test at later times. For example, prior
to the advent of spectroscopy it was considered to be impossible to test theories
about the chemical composition of the stars because there was no way to go to
them and obtain samples for analysis. However, with the discovery of spectral
analysis, tests of the chemical composition of the stars became commonplace.
The history of science is replete with similar cases, which is why philosophers
(including Popper) speak of whether theories are falsifiable in principle rather
than whether they can be falsified at the present time.
Even religious theories, which some scientists currently consider to be
untestable, are not necessarily so in principle. Consider the religious theory
that God created everything. Although this theory has undesirable characteristics, the oft-cited charge that it is, in principle, not falsifiable is not one of
them. To see why, let us introduce an auxiliary assumption that there is a
prayer that, upon discovery, would induce God to appear and truthfully answer
questions. Well, then, suppose someone discovered this crucial prayer, used
it to summon God, and asked God directly about creation. God’s denial of
responsibility for creation, if it happened, would provide strong evidence
against the religious theory. It would not be proof because God might lie about
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his responsibility for creating an imperfect universe, or perhaps the being that
answered the prayer is not really God, and so on. But as I pointed out earlier,
this is a problem with any scientific theory—contradictory data can always be
attributed to wrong auxiliary assumptions rather than to wrong theories. The
point is that if one is sufficiently creative about auxiliary assumptions, it is
always possible to have tests of seemingly unfalsifiable theories.1 Ultimately,
when one decides how much to believe or disbelieve a theory, the issue is the
weight of the evidence, the plausibility of alternative explanations, presumptions
about the validity of auxiliary assumptions, and so on, rather than conclusive
proof or disproof.
Although falsification—or at least the naïve version presented here thus
far—is clearly an inadequate philosophy of science, a more sophisticated version has some desirable characteristics. For example, Popper argued that
although theories cannot be proven, they can be corroborated (supported) to
a greater or lesser degree depending on their ability to make risky predictions,
which are predictions that are likely to be wrong if the theory is wrong. Of
course, as I explained earlier, all predictions, whether risky or not, come from
the theory and auxiliary assumptions. Consequently, if one theory makes
more risky predictions than another, it might be that the other theory would
have made more risky predictions in the context of more creative auxiliary
assumptions. Nevertheless, the fact that a particular theory has been shown to
make risky predictions is a point in its favour: the theory allows researchers
to predict something that they would be unlikely to predict without the
theory. Therefore, I will retain Popper’s assertion that, ceteris paribus, risky
predictions are a point in favor of the theories that have been demonstrated to
make them.
Because of the difficulty in evaluating theories without a supporting context
of auxiliary assumptions, Lakatos (1978) argued that whole research programs
rather than single theories should be evaluated. From a philosophical point of
view this is not very satisfying because it suggests that philosophers can deem
research programs to be successful only after they have demonstrated themselves to be so, and it would be desirable to be able to make these evaluations on
an a priori basis. But from a psychological perspective, particularly from the perspective of evaluating theory of reasoned action research, there has been over 40
years of research, and so it seems reasonable to inquire as to whether this
research program has led to risky predictions. If the answer is in the affirmative,
that would constitute a strong point in its favour, whereas if the answer is in the
negative, that would constitute strong support for its falsificationist critics.
The Theory of Reasoned Action
This section contains a brief description of the theory of reasoned action followed by two examples of risky predictions that have been made from the theory.
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In one case the risky prediction has been supported, but in the other case it has
not. These cases will be split into subsections dealing with the distinction between
attitude and subjective norm and whether attitudes have both a cognitive and
affective component.
Brief Description of the Theory of Reasoned Action
The theory of reasoned action can be described briefly as follows (see Ajzen
& Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein, 1980; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975, for fuller accounts).
The most proximal cause of behavior is behavioral intention (what one
intends to do or not to do). Behavioral intention, in turn, is determined by attitude (one’s evaluation of the behavior) and subjective norm (one’s evaluation
of what important others think one should do), either of which might be the
most important determinant of any particular behavior. Usually, this is revealed
empirically by the beta weights obtained from multiple regression analyses,
where behavioral intention is regressed on to attitude and subjective norm. If
the result is a larger attitude than subjective norm beta weight, the behavior is
deemed to be more under attitudinal than normative control, but if the reverse
is true, then the behavior is deemed to be more under normative than attitudinal control. In either case, then, it is desirable to know what determines attitude or subjective norm, respectively, if a researcher wishes to influence the
behavior. Attitude is determined by behavioral beliefs (beliefs about the likelihood of various consequences) and evaluations of how good or bad it would
be if those consequences happened. Subjective norm is determined by beliefs
about what specific important others think one should do and how much one is
motivated to comply with those important others. Both attitude and subjective
norm are assumed to be determined by summative processes. Thus, to form
an attitude, people are assumed to sum behavioral belief-evaluation products
(attitude = ∑biei), whereas to form a subjective norm, people are assumed to
sum normative belief-motivation to comply products (subjective norm = ∑nimi).
The Distinction between Attitude and Subjective Norm
The theory of reasoned action has been criticized in many ways. Possibly the
most extensive commentary has pertained to the distinction between attitude
and subjective norm (e.g., Liska, 1984; Miniard & Cohen, 1981; see Trafimow,
1998, for a review). The basic problem is largely a conceptual one, though
there have also been empirical arguments that will not be covered here (but
see Trafimow, 1998). To understand the conceptual problem, remember that
attitudes are presumably determined by beliefs about consequences (and evaluations of those consequences) whereas subjective norms are determined by
normative beliefs (and motivations to comply). But what if behavioral beliefs
and normative beliefs are really different names for the same construct? This is
precisely the question posed by Miniard and Cohen (1981), whose argument
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can be illustrated by example, as follows. Suppose that the behavior of
concern is “eating a chocolate bar” and so a behavioral belief might be “my
father will disagree with me if I eat a chocolate bar.” A normative belief might
be “my father thinks I should not eat a chocolate bar.” These two beliefs seem
to be different ways of saying the same thing, thereby contradicting the idea
that there is a strong distinction between them. Clearly, if this distinction is
incorrect, the attitude–subjective norm distinction, which is based on it, is also
cast into doubt.
There is a falsification argument that can be made here. Fishbein and his
advocates could come up with counter-examples where the distinction seems
to be much stronger than in the foregoing examples, but Miniard and Cohen
and their advocates could reply with yet more examples where the distinction
seems to fail. Even if researchers agreed on the examples, they could disagree
about whether those examples favor the distinction or go against it. Thus,
there seems to be a conceptual problem with the theory of reasoned action
that renders it unfalsifiable.
Nevertheless, in work with colleagues I have performed several sets of experiments that provided reasonably risky tests of the distinction. Fishbein and I
(Trafimow & Fishbein, 1994a) made use of an auxiliary assumption that was
supported by Stasson and Fishbein (1990) concerning seat belt use under safe
or risky driving conditions. Stasson and Fishbein had used a multiple regression
paradigm to show that intentions to wear a seat belt under safe driving conditions were attitudinally controlled whereas intentions to wear a seat belt under
risky driving conditions were normatively controlled. So Fishbein and I performed three experiments in which we manipulated attitudes towards wearing
a seat belt under these conditions with behavioral intentions to wear a seat belt
as the dependent measure. If the attitude–subjective norm distinction is a false
one, the attitude manipulation should be equally effective in influencing behavioral intentions regardless of whether behavioral intentions are measured in a
safe or risky driving context. But if it is really the case that seat belt use under
safe driving conditions is attitudinally controlled whereas seat belt use under
risky driving conditions is normatively controlled, the attitude manipulation
should affect only behavioral intentions in the safe driving context and not in
the risky driving context. Three experiments supported this latter prediction.
Furthermore, Fishbein and I (Trafimow & Fishbein, 1994b) performed a set of
analogous experiments to show that subjective norm manipulations affected
intentions to perform normatively controlled behaviors but not intentions to
perform attitudinally controlled behaviors.
Fishbein and I (Trafimow & Fishbein, 1995) also tested the distinction at
the belief level—precisely the level at which the accusation of not being
falsifiable seems most appropriate. We invoked an auxiliary assumption about
the formation of associations between beliefs to provide a way of testing
whether people distinguish between behavioral and normative beliefs. We
reasoned that if people really use behavioral beliefs to form an attitude, then
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this would involve comparing the behavioral beliefs to other behavioral
beliefs, thereby resulting in the formation of associations among the behavioral beliefs. Similar reasoning applied to normative beliefs suggests that
associations between them also should be formed. However, there is no reason to assume that associations are formed between behavioral beliefs and
normative beliefs because there is no reason for people to compare them to
each other. Well then, suppose that people are asked to write down their beliefs
about a behavior. If the first belief retrieved is a behavioral belief, then it
should be easy to traverse an associative pathway to another behavioral belief.
Similarly, if the first belief retrieved is a normative belief, then it should be easy
to traverse an associative pathway to another normative belief. The upshot is
that there should be clustering in the retrieved beliefs: the behavioral beliefs
should tend to be recalled adjacently to each other and the normative beliefs
should tend to be recalled adjacently to each other. Three experiments supported
this prediction controlling for a variety of variables such as possible priming
effects, the semantic similarity of the beliefs, and others.
There have been additional tests. For example, Finlay and I (Trafimow &
Finlay, 1996) demonstrated that people, as well as behaviors, can be under
attitudinal or normative control. Furthermore, based on this research, Ybarra
and I (Ybarra & Trafimow, 1998) showed that priming the private self increases
the attitude–intention association whereas priming the collective self increases
the subjective norm–intention association. However, I risk belaboring the point
that with respect to the attitude–subjective norm distinction, the combination
of the theory of reasoned action with carefully selected auxiliary assumptions
resulted in successful tests of predictions that easily could have failed. And
had these predictions failed, I, at least, would have been more likely to conclude that the theory of reasoned action is wrong than to assume that the
repeated failures were caused by invalid auxiliary assumptions. Thus, we have
at least one case of reasonable corroboration for a theory that is supposedly
not falsifiable.
Affective and Cognitive Attitude Components
According to the theory of reasoned action, attitude is a cognitive variable: it
is an evaluation based on expected likelihoods of consequences and their values (Fishbein, 1980). In contrast, other researchers believe that attitudes contain both an affective and a cognitive component (e.g., Triandis, 1980). To test
these possibilities, many researchers have used factor analytic research paradigms—participants are asked to endorse the items that make up an attitude
measure, and factor analysis is used to determine if the items load onto one
factor or two. Contrary to the theory of reasoned action, researchers typically
obtain two factors rather than one, with affective items loading onto one of
the factors and cognitive items loading onto the other (Abelson, Kinder, Peters,
& Fiske, 1982; Breckler, 1984; Breckler & Wiggins, 1989; Crites, Fabrigar,
& Petty, 1994; Triandis, 1980).
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Although the factor analytic research seems to provide a compelling case
against the theory of reasoned action, Fishbein (1980) met the challenge with
an elegant argument based on three issues. In the first place, factors obtained
from factor analyses have to be named, and although there might be agreement on the cognitive factor, it is less clear whether the second factor measures affect or whether it mentions something else (e.g., health). Secondly, if
it could be shown that one of the factors is strongly correlated with Σbiei and
intention, whereas the other factor is not (or less so), then there is no reason
to prefer an “affective/cognitive” interpretation over an “attitude/something
else” interpretation; in fact, the reverse would be true. Thirdly, Fishbein presented an actual case where this was so. Furthermore, what Fishbein considered as a health factor, because of its lack of correlation with Σbiei and
intention, correlated well with health variables.
From a falsification perspective, Fishbein’s (1980) clever argument could be
perceived as harming rather than helping the theory of reasoned action. If the
factor analytic evidence can be interpreted to support or disconfirm Fishbein’s
attitude conception, depending on the argumentative abilities of the researcher,
then there would seem to be no way to falsify the theory. But this problem in
falsification is unsolvable only if researchers insist on limiting themselves to
factor analytic paradigms. In addition to using factor analysis, Sheeran and I
(Trafimow & Sheeran, 1998) made use of an auxiliary assumption that we
termed the associative hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, beliefs that are
more cognitive are likely to become associated with each other, as are beliefs
that are more affective. During retrieval, participants traverse associative pathways from cognitive beliefs to other cognitive beliefs and from affective beliefs
to other affective beliefs. Using a variety of experimental paradigms, Sheeran
and I obtained evidence that corroborates this hypothesis. Our participants
tended to retrieve cognitive beliefs adjacently to each other and they tended to
retrieve affective beliefs adjacently to each other, even when controlling for
potential confounding effects such as linguistic similarity, belief valence, and
others. Thus, these data provide reasonable (but not absolute) falsification of an
important assumption of the theory of reasoned action that attitudes do not contain distinct affective and cognitive components. Furthermore, this falsification
has led to theory change in that more recent versions of the theory include the
distinction (e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005).
Extending the Program
This section expands on theory of reasoned action research in two ways. The
first subsection presents a risky prediction made by Ajzen’s (1988) theory of
planned behavior, which is an extension of the theory of reasoned action. The
second subsection shows how Fishbein’s distinction between attitudes and
subjective norms can be used as an auxiliary assumption to derive a risky
prediction from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
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Perceived Behavioral Control
Ajzen (1988) extended the theory of reasoned action by adding perceived
behavioral control—how much control people think they have over their behavior—as an additional determinant of behavioral intention. Perceived behavioral
control is usually measured by items such as “X is under my control” and “X
is easy for me to perform.” Note the implicit assumption that perceptions
of control and perceptions of difficulty are the same thing. Contrary to this
assumption, my colleagues and I (Trafimow, Sheeran, Conner, & Finlay, 2002)
have performed the following three demonstrations. Most importantly, we
showed that there are behavioral intentions that are affected by manipulating
control beliefs but not by manipulating difficulty beliefs; whereas there are
other behavioral intentions that are affected by manipulating difficulty beliefs
but not by manipulating control beliefs. If the two types of beliefs are equivalent, these differential effects should be impossible to obtain. Secondly, we
performed several experiments showing that different control beliefs are more
associated with each other in memory than with difficulty beliefs, and that difficulty beliefs are more associated with each other than with control beliefs.
Thirdly, we performed a meta-analysis showing that difficulty is a better predictor of more behavioral intentions than is control. Thus, the perceived behavioral control issue provides a nice case where a widely cited extension of the
theory of reasoned action has been demonstrated not only to be reasonably
testable but to have failed some of the tests.2
Fishbein and Freud
Although Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action has been considered by many to
be unfalsifiable, the most famous example of a supposedly unfalsifiable theory
in the history of psychology would have to be Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
(Freud, 1908/1959; 1922/1955; see Sarnoff, 1976, for an accessible review). In
this subsection, I intend to demonstrate not only that Freud’s theory is testable,
but that it can be tested by using the distinction between attitude and subjective
norm, from the theory of reasoned action, as the crucial auxiliary assumption.
A central concept in Freud’s theory concerns the Oedipal Complex, where
young children are faced with the perceived choice of conforming to the samesex parent’s proscriptions or being punished severely. According to Freud, young
children usually pick the former choice, which results in their internalizing the
same-sex parent’s values. But although the young children’s behaviors are
strongly influenced by their parents’ proscriptions, this influence decreases as
the children grow older. In the first place, they develop defense mechanisms
that allow them to do more of what they want to do while still pretending (even
to themselves) that they are behaving according to their internalized values.
Secondly, with increasing maturity they gain physical and mental abilities that
make them increasingly independent of parental constraints.
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There is a clear parallel between Freud and Fishbein. Stated in terms of
attitudes and subjective norms, Freud’s theory clearly implies that younger
children, who are more dependent and have less well-developed defense
mechanisms than those in older children, should be particularly highly influenced by what they think their parents think they should do; their behaviors
should be under normative control. In contrast, older children should be more
likely to intend to perform behaviors according to their own evaluations; their
behaviors should be under attitudinal control. My colleagues and I (Trafimow,
Brown, Grace, Thompson, & Sheeran, 2002) actually tested this prediction in
a large sample of children ranging from ages 8 to 16. We measured these children’s attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions to perform 30 behaviors and
we performed both between-participants and within-participants correlational
analyses and multiple regression analyses. Contrary to Freud’s theory, although
children of all age groups tended to be much more under attitudinal than
normative control, there were no differences in attitudinal or normative control
across the age groups for either between-participants analyses or withinparticipants analyses. Furthermore, the lack of a difference is not due to a lack
of discrimination between the behaviours, because there were large mean
differences across age groups. For example, younger children had much more
positive attitudes and intentions to “pretend to be asleep” than did older children.
Thus, it was not the responses on the variables that were the same across age
groups but rather the relationships between the variables.
In summary, Freud’s theory is often cited, even in undergraduate textbooks,
as the prototypical example of an unfalsifiable theory in psychology (e.g.,
Bernstein, Clarke-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens, 1994; Myers, 1992; Ryckman,
1993) despite the numerous empirical tests and applications of the theory that
have been reviewed by Fisher and Greenberg (1996). One reason it has been
considered to be unfalsifiable may be because it is difficult to figure out how
one would actually test it. In the present language, it is difficult to see what
auxiliary assumptions one could make that would allow for a reasonable test
of the theory. But the fact that the crucial auxiliary assumptions are difficult
to find does not mean that they cannot be found. In the Trafimow et al. (2002)
study, the attitude–subjective norm distinction from Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action was used as the crucial auxiliary assumption and it resulted in a
reasonable (but not absolute) disconfirmation of Freud’s theory. It is ironic
that the theory of reasoned action, which has been accused of being unfalsifiable, turned out to be capable of being used to falsify a central aspect of Freud’s
theory, which has also been considered to be unfalsifiable.
Discussion
Readers of a preliminary version of the present article suggested relevant issues
that will be addressed in this section.3 One issue that has been addressed in
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detail by Putnam (1975), Smedslund (1991), and Michael and Lise Wallach
(1998; also see L. Wallach & M.A. Wallach, 2001) is the issue of tautologies
and near-tautologies. Triandis (1980) pointed out an example of a tautological
proposition in the attitude area—specifically, that attitudes have often been
defined as predispositions for behavior. Given this definition, Triandis asserted
that the numerous tests that have been conducted of whether attitudes predict
behaviors seem misplaced because attitudes must predict behaviors by definition, regardless of any empirical findings. Less extremely, Michael and Lise
Wallach (1998) suggested that much research in social psychology involves
the use of near-tautologies—theories that “are so entrenched in the system
of assumptions implicit in social psychological thinking that they cannot be
disconfirmed” (p. 184). Because the system of assumptions in which social
psychology theories are entrenched is so strongly accepted, any deviations of
data from predictions would be deemed to be due to faulty auxiliary assumptions rather than due to the wrongness of the theory (or the wrongness of the
implicit assumptions to which the theory is tied). It might seem that tautological or near-tautological theories are not capable of being falsified.
It is true that falsification is an irrelevant consideration for tautological
propositions—there can be little doubt that definitions are not susceptible
to falsification (Putnam, 1975). But they are susceptible to considerations of
utility, as can be seen by examining the history of attitude research. It was
largely because of numerous demonstrations of low or nonexistent attitude–
behavior correlations (reviewed by Wicker, 1969) that Fishbein and Ajzen were
led to redefine attitudes as evaluations of behaviors rather than as predispositions to perform them, thereby rendering the predictive and causal effects of
attitudes on behaviors as empirical questions. By making this new definition
the centerpiece of their theory and by adding useful auxiliary assumptions in
the form of a measurement model, they were able to dramatically improve the
prediction of behaviors. Thus, the problem is not whether one definition or
another definition is true (“true” has no meaning in this context), rather it is
their relative utilities that are in question. The relative utility of definitions, in
turn, depends largely on the relative success of the theories in which they play
a role. Thus, although definitions themselves are not falsifiable, empirical
research can lead them to be changed for the better (Quine, 1953/1980). And
whatever the definitions are, the theories that contain them can be exposed to
risky predictions with the adroit use of auxiliary assumptions.
Let us now consider near-tautologies. I tend to agree with Wallach and
Wallach (L. Wallach & M.A. Wallach, 1998; M.A. Wallach & L. Wallach,
1998) that the particular examples of research they cite as near-tautological are
not major contributions to psychology. However, I disagree with them about
why this is so. According to Wallach and Wallach, the theories are not capable
of being falsified because they are too closely tied to the implicit assumptions
social psychologists have (O’Donohue, 1989, termed these “metaphysics”). But
I see nothing, in principle, that makes it impossible for researchers to make their
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513
metaphysical assumptions explicit, make more creative auxiliary assumptions,
or propose theories that are less closely tied to metaphysical assumptions, any
or all of which could result in the derivation of interesting hypotheses that
could be falsified under the criterion of reasonable falsification. It is true that
researchers tend not to follow these prescriptions and that there would be resistance from other psychologists who buy into the metaphysics that are currently
fashionable, but this is a normal hurdle in most sciences. I believe that the
problem with the research that Wallach and Wallach cite is that the theories
are simply uninteresting and uninformative, possibly because they are so closely
entrenched in what psychologists believe anyhow.4 Indeed, I used Bayes’s
theorem to demonstrate how the proposal of theories and hypotheses that are
too plausible, given one’s metaphysical assumptions, leads psychologists to
conduct research that fails to affect our levels of confidence in them (Trafimow,
2003). In summary, although I agree with Wallach and Wallach that much social
psychology theorizing is too closely tied to the metaphysics that are currently
fashionable, I disagree that this creates an insurmountable falsification problem;
one can always provide reasonably risky tests of theories given sufficiently
creative auxiliary assumptions. One reason that many social psychology
theories seem unfalsifiable may be that they are obvious given the metaphysics
to which they are so closely tied, and it is this seeming obviousness that causes
the illusion that they cannot be subjected to reasonable falsification efforts.
Boundary Conditions
Greenwald, Pratkanis, and Leippe (1986) stated that social psychology theories
are overgeneralized: the boundary conditions are narrower than is apparent
from the writings of proponents of these theories. In addition, Greenwald et al.
pointed out that there is a confirmation bias that retards progress because
researchers are so busy looking for evidence that confirms their theories that
they may not find out what the boundary conditions are for decades. To address
this problem, Greenwald et al. suggested two research strategies that move
away from theory testing. The idea of the condition-seeking strategy is to search
for the conditions under which the predicted effect occurs or does not occur.
This strategy can be used iteratively to obtain increasingly precise results.
For example, one might find that result R occurs under condition C1 but not
under condition C2. In turn, further research might indicate that condition C1
produces result R only under condition C3, and so on. In contrast, the idea of
the design strategy is to try to find conditions under which one can obtain a
presently unobtainable result. Both strategies move the researcher away from
theory testing and towards obtaining a more detailed empirical picture.
As Greenwald et al. (1986) recognized, these strategies can be criticized.
They cited Cronbach (1975), for example, as arguing that strategies such as
these, rather than leading to more scientific progress, instead lead to an infinitely
lengthy process of accumulating increasingly trivial findings. Greenwald et al.’s
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counter to this criticism is that interactions between conditions can be stated
in either a more empirical or a more theoretical way, and if one chooses the
latter, then Cronbach’s criticism no longer applies. But there is a problem
with this counter-argument. If one describes complicated interactions between
conditions with theoretical terms rather than with empirical ones, then overgeneralization is forced because the obtained interactions between conditions
doubtless interact with some other condition yet to be specified. Given that
the main point of the Greenwald et al. article was to avoid overgeneralization,
and given that their counter-argument to Cronbach assumes a strategy that, if
used, would result in precisely that effect, they can hardly be said to have successfully addressed Cronbach’s criticism.
Nevertheless, the condition-seeking and design strategies may be useful for
a completely different reason that relates to the present discussion of falsification. Specifically, these strategies seem likely to make one aware of some
of the auxiliary assumptions that were implicit in the original research or to
make one aware of other possible auxiliary assumptions that could be used.
Because the process of falsification is so dependent on auxiliary assumptions,
any strategy that leads researchers to become more aware of the ones they are
using or to discover others that could be used is likely to increase the efficacy
of falsification efforts. Ironically, although Greenwald et al. wanted to move
away from a theory-testing paradigm, the methods they espoused, if followed,
would be likely to result in better tests of theories.
Conclusion
Although the necessity of auxiliary assumptions to derive empirical hypotheses
renders absolute falsification impossible, it is nevertheless possible to make
progress in that direction depending on how creatively one selects and uses
auxiliary assumptions. By explicitly considering the conditions under which
predicted and unpredicted results may or may not occur, the creative selection
of auxiliary assumptions is likely to be augmented. A broad knowledge of
research outside one’s own area is also likely to help in this regard because it
increases the number of areas from which auxiliary assumptions can be drawn.
As was illustrated by the Freud example, sometimes theories in one area can act
as useful auxiliary assumptions to test theories in other areas. Finally, the mere
consciousness of the importance of auxiliary assumptions may serve as a prime
to increase the creativity with which researchers select them.
Whether a researcher uses one of the methods listed in the foregoing
paragraph or a different method to increase the creativity with which he or she
selects and uses auxiliary assumptions is not a matter of overwhelming concern.
What is of overwhelming concern is that the use of any method to creatively
select and use auxiliary assumptions to test a theory is unlikely if one begins by
assuming that the theory is not falsifiable. Consequently, I have argued that all
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515
theories are amenable, in principle, to some degree of falsification, depending
on how adept one is at choosing auxiliary assumptions. In addition, several
examples were provided of tests that could have resulted in a reasonable degree
of falsification or that actually did result in a reasonable degree of falsification
of ideas that had been said by at least some people to not be falsifiable.
My fervent hope is that rather than devote research efforts to explaining why
particular theories are not falsifiable, researchers will devote efforts to either
criticize theories on other grounds or to work harder to actually test them.
Notes
1. The reader may consider the discovery of a crucial prayer of this sort to be unlikely.
But how unlikely would it have seemed to an 18th-century chemist if someone had
suggested the possibility that one day scientists would determine the chemical
composition of the stars from the light that they radiate?
2. It may be possible to save the concept of perceived behavioral control by treating
it as a superordinate concept that has distinct “control” and “difficulty” components.
However, this treatment of perceived behavioral control clearly differs from Ajzen’s
original (e.g., 1988) one.
3. I thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version
of this article.
4. Another problem with psychology theories is that they tend to be mere summarizations of empirical findings rather than real theories. Although this issue is too tangential to the main points of present concern for further elaboration, Stam (1992)
has discussed it in some detail.
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DAVID TRAFIMOW is Professor of Psychology at New Mexico State University.
He has published articles on a variety of topics, including philosophical and statistical issues in psychology, attitudes, attribution, and self-concepts. ADDRESS:
Department of Psychology, MSC 3452, New Mexico State University, PO Box
30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003–8001, USA. [email: dtrafimo@nmsu.edu]
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