Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior

This book is concerned with the prediction and understanding of human behavior. To solve applied problems and make policy decisions it is often necessary to forecast or predict people's behaviour. Predictions may involve such diverse questions as the number of children people will have, whether or not they will buy a car in the next year, for whom they will vote in a given election. In many instances, the goal goes beyond prediction and attempt to influence or change behaviour.