Gender Differences in Condom Use Prediction with Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior

The article Gender differences in condom use prediction with Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior: The role of self-efficacy and control analyzes the differences between genders with regards to the use of a condom when having intercourse. The associated study focuses on preventing the occurrence of risky behaviors and uses behavioral theories to explain the scope of the study. The participants of the study are 601 Portuguese and Spanish university students randomly chosen and tested on whether theres a direct correlation between the intention of condom use and what types of theory is present depending on the gender differences. The primary goal of this study is to understand whether which interventions such as TRA and TPB are effective in preventing the transmission of HIV

The theories highlighted in the article are the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). The two theories analyze the association between attitudes, behavior, intentions, and beliefs. TRA model explains behavior is determined by ones intentions, while the TPB model explains behavior is influenced by both intentions and the Perceived Behavioral Control. The models focus on the change in behavior and hence are similar to other theoretical constructs. Both models are mainly applied to analyze the extent by which gender affects the various nature of the variables to make predictions of the intentions and occurrence of behavior.

In the survey, students are asked a series of questions to see whether they agree/disagree, the useful/useless, comfortable/uncomfortable, and very exciting/ not at all exciting with the use of condoms under certain circumstances. For example, these questions range from how their peers felt about using condoms, if they can convince the other person to use one, the use of contraceptive method would not hinder the use of condoms or if alcohol and drugs were a factor that could lead to the usage or no usage of condoms. They want to measure their intentions and attitudes towards the use of condoms by utilizing questionnaires.

The findings show that women were more prone to use condoms than men; however, when their behaviors were measured they were less likely to use condoms during sexual intercourse. To further strengthen their research they had to utilize the four factors of the TPB, which are; attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior controls, and last behavioral intention. When measuring the attitude, they simply wanted to know how each subject felt towards a particular behavior. The second factor is the subjective norm, which is recorded by asking the subjects how their friends would perceive the use of condoms. The third factor is perceived behavioral control which is recorded by asking the participants If I want to use a condom in my sexual relations, I will be able to convince the other person to use one, even if we use another contraceptive method this question gauges whether theyre able to control their beliefs in order to persuade their partners to use condoms, which is an important step in behavioral studies in this research. These four factors all play a crucial role in determining which behavior has the most effect on the differences between male and female.

Based on the results to determine if the TBP theory raises the variance percentage of both the intention and behavior of using condoms concerning the TRA model, the data inclines more with the intentions of behavior rather than the actual behavior. The findings illustrate that women depend on their own individual factors while men depend more on the social factors. Women hold their values and beliefs higher than men.