Value correlates of preventive health behavior

Abstract

In a postal survey, 113 respondents completed the Rokeach (1967) Terminal Value Survey with an additional value, "health," and 15 questions about their preventive health behavior (PHB). Correlation and regression analyses showed that health and other values were related to overall PHB, suggesting that health researchers should also consider the role of values other than health. In consistency with Rokeach's theory, respondents who reported good PHB valued health more than did those who reported poor PHB. There were also significant differences in the general value orientation of extraversion versus introversion. Health educators might apply knowledge of such differences to a value confrontation program. As hypothesized, regression analyses for each of the 15 PHB items showed that health value was more likely to be predictive of behavior that involved a direct rather than indirect risk to health. For behaviorally consistent respondents, health value was correlated with both types of behavior, whereas for behaviorally inconsistent respondents, health value was only correlated with direct-risk behavior. This suggests that health researchers should ensure that subjects are aware of the relevance of a PHB to health before concluding that health value, or a related construct, cannot be predictive of PHB. Finally, the regression analyses suggest that it was possible to predict specific PHBs from the more general value ranks. This finding raised questions about the validity of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1977) notion of levels of specificity and provided further support to Rokeach's value theory.