MPH 505 Week 5 Theory Application Paper Example

Theory Application Paper: The Theory of Planned Behavior Explains Why Small-Boat Anglers Stow the Life Jacket, and Points to the Fishing Partner as the Lever

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 505: Public Health Communication and Behavioral Health Theories

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Theory Application Paper: The Theory of Planned Behavior Explains Why Small-Boat Anglers Stow the Life Jacket, and Points to the Fishing Partner as the Lever

The Problem

Men who fish from their own small open motorboats are among the people most likely to drown in recreational boating, and they rarely wear the life jackets they carry. In 2024, where vessel type was known, open motorboats accounted for 255 of the year's 556 recreational boating deaths, 153 of them drownings, and 178 of the people who died had been fishing when the incident began (U.S. Coast Guard, 2025). In the composite county used throughout this course, Pruitt County, nine of the eleven boating drownings recorded over ten years were men aged 40 to 74 fishing from boats of this kind, none wearing a life jacket. A composite ramp count in spring 2026 found that 7% of adult men leaving the county's two main ramps in boats under 21 feet were wearing one.

The question this paper addresses is why. Earlier work in this course showed that the men in this group know life jackets work and almost all carry one. Something other than knowledge stands between carrying and wearing, and a campaign that does not identify it will repeat the safety messages these men already accept and ignore.

Choosing One Theory

Three theories were candidates. The health belief model, applied in week 2, explained much of the problem through barriers such as heat, bulk and price, and through a belief that danger comes only with bad weather. The extended parallel process model, used in week 4 to critique a ramp sign, explains how people respond to fear messages but says little about behavior where fear is not the main issue. The theory of planned behavior was chosen because the audience analysis in week 3 found that the strongest barriers were social: wearing a life jacket marks a man as inexperienced in the eyes of the people he fishes with. The theory of planned behavior gives that belief its own construct, subjective norm, rather than treating it as one cost among others.

Ajzen (1991) placed intention immediately before action and traced intention back to three groups of beliefs: attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Perceived control also affects behavior directly when it reflects real constraints. Pooling prospective studies, McEachan and colleagues showed that the theory's constructs predicted a meaningful share of the variance in health behaviors, with intention and perceived control the strongest predictors, though prediction weakened with longer follow-up and was poorer for risk behaviors than for protective ones (McEachan et al., 2011).

Attitude: Agreement in Principle, Rejection in Practice

Attitude is the person's overall evaluation of performing the behavior, built from beliefs about its outcomes. For this group, the outcome beliefs pull in two directions. They believe wearing a life jacket would help if they went into the water. They also believe it would make them hot, catch on the reel and be unnecessary on calm mornings on familiar water. Focus group participants in Washington State described the same pattern: they valued life jackets but wore them only in poor conditions (Quistberg et al., 2014). The theory predicts that the attitude toward "wearing a life jacket on every trip" will be lukewarm even though the attitude toward "life jackets" is positive. This distinction matters for message design: arguing for life jackets in general targets an attitude that is already favorable.

Subjective Norm: The Fishing Partner Decides

Subjective norm is the person's belief about whether important others think he should perform the behavior, weighted by his motivation to comply with them. For this segment, the important others are not family members at home, who would almost certainly want him to wear one, but the people present at the decision: the fishing partner in the boat and the regulars at the ramp. Those people rarely wear life jackets, and the men in this group report that wearing would invite comment. Applying the theory makes visible what the health belief model treated as a minor cost: the norm in the boat is not to wear.

Evidence from observational research supports the importance of the person in the boat. In a statewide survey of more than 5,000 boaters, teenagers wore life jackets much more often when an adult in the same boat had one on (Chung et al., 2014). No equivalent study has examined adult partners, so the effect among men fishing together is an inference, but it is consistent with the theory and with what anglers say. Cialdini (2003) adds that a descriptive norm, what most people are seen doing, can undermine a message that tells people what they ought to do: a ramp full of men without life jackets teaches the norm more powerfully than any sign.

Perceived Behavioral Control: Easy for Foam, Hard for Inflatables

Perceived control is the person's belief about how easy or difficult the behavior would be. Wearing a foam vest is easy in a technical sense but uncomfortable, which these men experience as a kind of control problem: they cannot fish properly in it. The device that removes the discomfort, an inflatable belt pack or suspender vest, brings a new control problem. Men in this group are unsure which type to buy, how to tell whether it is armed and whether it would really inflate. Quistberg et al. (2014) reported that the only behavior change described by participants came with switching to inflatable devices. The theory predicts that raising control over inflatables, through demonstration, hands-on fitting and an easier way to buy one, would raise both intention and wearing.

What the Theory Explains That Was Not Obvious Before

Before this application, the problem looked like a matter of discomfort and risk perception. The theory shows that it is also a matter of who is watching. Two men who would each wear a comfortable inflatable alone may both leave it stowed when they fish together, because neither wants to be the first. This means the unit for a campaign is the pair, not the individual. A message that asks one man to wear a life jacket asks him to break the norm of his boat. A message that asks fishing partners to agree on wearing changes the norm itself.

Implications as Program Decisions

The application leads to four decisions. First, the campaign will recruit pairs of fishing partners and local opinion leaders, such as bait shop owners and fishing club officers, to wear inflatables visibly at the ramps, changing the descriptive norm that newcomers see. Second, messages will speak to partners together, asking them to agree before launch, rather than speaking to the individual about his own risk. Third, the program will raise control over inflatables through fitting days at the two largest bait shops, where men can try on and arm devices, and through a trade-in discount for an old foam vest. Fourth, the campaign will not spend money on further severity messages, because the attitude toward life jackets in general is already positive.

Limits of the Theory Here

The theory has three limits for this problem. It predicts intention better than behavior, and the gap between intending to wear and actually clipping one on at five in the morning may be large. It assumes reasoned decisions, but wearing at the ramp is largely habitual, and habits may need cues and routines more than changed beliefs. And the strongest evidence for increasing adult life jacket wear comes from rules rather than persuasion: at four Army Corps lakes in Mississippi, a wear requirement raised adult use from 13.7% to about 70% for three years, while an education campaign in California produced a small and fading change (Mangione & Chow, 2014). In Victoria, Australia, a wear requirement for small power boats was followed by higher observed wear and fewer drowning deaths among recreational boaters (Bugeja et al., 2014; Cassell & Newstead, 2015). A campaign built on this theory should be presented honestly as one approach, which could support a later rule rather than replace it.

References

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Bugeja, L., Cassell, E., Brodie, L. R., & Walter, S. J. (2014). Effectiveness of the 2005 compulsory personal flotation device (PFD) wearing regulations in reducing drowning deaths among recreational boaters in Victoria, Australia. Injury Prevention, 20(6), 387-392. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2014-041169

Cassell, E., & Newstead, S. (2015). Did compulsory wear regulations increase personal flotation device (PFD) use by boaters in small power recreational vessels? A before-after observational study conducted in Victoria, Australia. Injury Prevention, 21(1), 15-22. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2014-041170

Chung, C., Quan, L., Bennett, E., Kernic, M. A., & Ebel, B. E. (2014). Informing policy on open water drowning prevention: An observational survey of life jacket use in Washington State. Injury Prevention, 20(4), 238-243. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2013-041005

Cialdini, R. B. (2003). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(4), 105-109. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.01242

Mangione, T., & Chow, W. (2014). Changing life jacket wearing behavior: An evaluation of two approaches. Journal of Public Health Policy, 35(2), 204-218. https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2013.51

McEachan, R. R. C., Conner, M., Taylor, N. J., & Lawton, R. J. (2011). Prospective prediction of health-related behaviours with the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology Review, 5(2), 97-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2010.521684

Quistberg, D. A., Bennett, E., Quan, L., & Ebel, B. E. (2014). Low life jacket use among adult recreational boaters: A qualitative study of risk perception and behavior factors. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 62, 276-284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2013.10.015

U.S. Coast Guard. (2025). 2024 recreational boating statistics (COMDTPUB P16754.38). U.S. Department of Homeland Security. https://www.uscgboating.org/library/accident-statistics/Recreational-Boating-Statistics-2024.pdf