| This study utilizes an adaptation of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1975, 1980) Theory of Reasoned Action to identify Illinois Legislators' behavioral intentions regarding voting in the dispersal of Illinois tobacco settlement money and determines the best predictor in the formation of that specific behavioral intention. This research also addresses whether legislators' personal factors, a variable that measured various tobacco usage, cessation methods and priorities of funding allocations, play a role in the voting decision process.; The study population consisted of all 177 members of the 92nd Illinois General Assembly. The research design used is non-experimental and relied on the legislators to self-report the data. I designed the instrument used in this study.; The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine what was the best predictor (using Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) Theory of Reasoned Action) of behavioral intention to vote in favor of spending the majority of tobacco settlement monies gained by taxing smokers, on health related issues. The Pearson r correlation coefficients were calculated for attitude, outcome expectation, evaluation of outcome expectation, subjective norm (a generalized perception of what others would have one do), salient referents, motivation to comply with salient referents, and age at onset of smoking for those who smoke or have smoked in the past, with relationship to behavioral intention. The strongest correlation existed between attitude and behavioral intention (r = .820, p = .000), therefore attitude was the best predictor of behavioral intention. Subjective norm was moderately positively correlated with Behavioral Intention. Past tobacco users were more likely to vote favorably for the tobacco settlement monies to be spent on health related issues than non-tobacco users. Non-smokers were more likely to intend to vote favorably for the tobacco settlement monies to be spent on health related issues than any other group. |
