A socio-psychological approach to household behavior: The importance of group-oriented I-intentions and we-intentions

Group oriented I-intentions and shared intentions of performing household behavior – specifically, maintaining, with other family members, a positive household budget – were studied by using students (N = 480) as key informants of their family decision making. Theory and measures from the literature on social action were drawn upon. Specifically, an augmented model of goal-directed behavior (MGB) with the inclusion of social identity was compared to the theory of planned behavior and some variants, by using structural equation modeling. Consistent with predictions, the MGB explained significantly greater amounts of variance in both types of intentions than traditional approaches such as the theory of planned behavior. Secondly, desire mediated all the effects of the antecedents (i.e., such reasons for acting as attitudes, subjective norms, anticipated emotions, social identity) on intentions. Finally, we-intentions, but not I-intentions, were predicted by social identification, as forecast. Findings are interpreted by taking into account recent household behavior and decision-making research.