| Attitudes are the basis upon which individuals perceive the world and react to outside stimuli. The Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1987) have been widely used to demonstrate that individuals rely on beliefs to shape attitudes. In both of these models, past experience is thought to be mediated through information processing during the development of beliefs and therefore past experience would have no direct influence on attitude formation. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between neighboring landowners' past experiences and beliefs, in the prediction of attitudes towards a proposed greenway trail development to determine if past experience directly influences attitude formation.; The influence of past experience on six neighboring landowner belief dimensions (privacy, property damage, trespassing, landowner liability, property value, and crime) which were identified as issues of importance to individuals owning land near trails, through previous research was examined. The construct of past experience has not been clearly defined through previous research in this discipline. Building on the work of Bryan (1977 & 1979) and Schreyer, Lime and Williams (1984), the definition was expanded to include recency and frequency dimensions recommended by Bagozzi and Warshaw (1990).; An indirect effect model of past experience on attitude via beliefs was compared to a model with a direct effect of past experience on attitude using structural equation modeling. The two models fit the data equally well therefore it is possible that past experience has a direct influence on attitude.; One implication of the results is that past experience may be used as a surrogate for beliefs as a predictor of attitude. This finding is inconsistent with current attitude theory and is worthy of further exploration. Analysis of the results also revealed that the benefits belief dimension had a much stronger influence on attitude than the concern belief dimension. Such a finding may indicate that landowners consider the potential benefits of greenway trail development to be more important than potential concerns, thus demonstrating the need for agencies to communicate the potential benefits to neighboring landowners. |
