Attitudes on sunday work and shopping in the context of the theory of reasoned action

Momčilović, Aco. (2008). Attitudes on sunday work and shopping in the context of the theory of reasoned action. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Šverko, Branimir].

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Abstract

The issue of Sunday work has become a relevant social issue during the last decade, which has been the period of transition in Croatia. Aside from political discussions, Sunday work has triggered reevaluation of social values related to the work regulations. One of the major social actors whose attitude on the issue has been made public, is the Catholic Church. Since the majority of Croatia's population are Catholic, it seems relevant to consider the attitudes of Croatian citizens towards Sunday work and Sunday shopping. Looking at the religious belief as an implicit social norm, it seems appropriate to examine the influence of religiosity on consumer attitudes towards Sunday work and Sunday shopping in the context of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1975) Theory of Reasoned Action. Their postulate is that the final behaviour is a result of behavioral intention, which results from the interaction of attitude and subjective norm, and the model is represented by the regression equation. The data needed for this research were collected by an omnibus survey (N=1000) on a representative sample of Croatia's population. The results of the research show that the majority of participants go shopping on Sunday (65%), and 43% think that all shops should be closed on Sunday. As much as 57% of participants would agree to work on Sunday if they would be financially stimulated. There is almost a linear growth trend of the negative attitude towards Sunday work as a function of hourly wages raise. Furthermore, participants having a more negative attitude towards shops being open on Sunday, tend to shop less on this day. Taking into consideration the intention of Sunday work and Sunday shopping, the predictions of the Ajzen and Fishbein's model have been only partly confirmed. Employing both measures of behavioral intention, attitude proves to be the only component relevant for prediction. This result is in contrast with the theoretical expectations and the postulated model. The lack of influence of religiosity could be viewed as resulting from the usage of some strategies of neutralization of cognitive dissonance (Dunford and Kunz, 1973) or from the insufficient specificity of the measure of religiosity (Ajzen i Fishbein, 1977).

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