When belief conflicts with behaviour

We believe that obeying traffic laws is important to maintain discipline on the road. Yet, we are silent when the driver of the auto-rickshaw you just hired sneaks into a one-way street to help you reach your destination on time. Why do we behave in ways that conflict with our attitudes or beliefs?

Psychologists call the difference in our attitude and behaviour as the attitude-behaviour gap.

This gap arises due to several reasons. Your attitude may refer to your general beliefs but your behaviour may relate to a particular occasion.

You generally obey traffic rules but you let the auto-rickshaw driver violate them because you did not want to be late. Another reason is because of the hot-cold empathy gap. You may believe that eating health food is good, yet have more junk food than the rest of your family.

Here, your belief about eating health food is held in a cold state, when there is no craving for such food.

But when you are in a hot state, the urge to eat junk food, especially when you are watching TV, is so compelling that you set aside your health-related beliefs and yield to temptation.

You may experience attitude-behaviour gap in your financial decisions as well. You may believe that equity investments are for the long haul, but may trade too frequently in the hope that you can generate profits in the short-term. Similarly, you may believe that credit cards should be not used for non-essential (discretionary) expenses. But when you walk past a department store that has a discount sale on home furnishings, you may decide to use your credit card to make high-value purchases.

MIND THE GAP

Your attitude-behaviour gap can impact your emotional, physical or financial well being. Suppose you avail the services of an investment advisor. Your adviser may recommend investments based on your attitude (moderately risky choices, for instance), but such investments may not help your cause if you have a conservative behaviour. You may panic and sell your investments when the market declines. Whatever reason attributed to your attitude-behaviour gap, the fact is that such a gap could prevent you from achieving your investment objectives.

So, how can you reduce the gap? One way is to minimise outside influence. That is, you should not be swayed by your friends and colleagues. But that is not enough. Often, you are your worst enemy. So, exert self-control to bridge the attitude-behaviour gap. You can do so by framing rules and strictly adhering to them. But that is easier said than done.

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