The Campbell Paradigm as a Behavior-Predictive Reinterpretation of the Classical Tripartite Model of Attitudes

Abstract. In this article, we introduce the “Campbell Paradigm” as a novel variant of Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) tripartite model of attitudes. The Campbell Paradigm is based on a highly restricted measurement model that speaks of a compensatory relation between a person’s latent attitude and the costs that come with any specific behavior. It overcomes the overarching weakness of the original tripartite model (i.e., its relative irrelevance for actual behavior) and offers a parsimonious explanation for behavior. Even though this seems attractive, we also discuss why the paradigm has not gained momentum in the 50 years since it was originally proposed by Donald T. Campbell. To demonstrate the paradigm’s suitability even when implemented with an unrefined instrument in a domain where it has not been used previously, we apply the paradigm to a classic data example from attitude research from the 1984 US presidential election to account for the electorate’s voting intentions and actual voting behaviors.