The Nature and Predictive Value of Mothers' Beliefs Regarding Infants' and Toddlers' TV/Video Viewing: Applying the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction.

Viewing television and video programming has become a normative behavior among US infants and toddlers. Little is understood about parents' decision-making about the extent of their young children's viewing, though numerous organizations are interested in reducing time spent viewing among infants and toddlers. Prior research has examined parents' belief in the educational value of TV/videos for young children and the predictive value of this belief for understanding infant/toddler viewing rates, though other possible salient beliefs remain largely unexplored. This study employs the integrative model of behavioral prediction (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010) to examine 30 maternal beliefs about infants' and toddlers' TV/video viewing which were elicited from a prior sample of mothers. Results indicate that mothers tend to hold more positive than negative beliefs about the outcomes associated with young children's TV/video viewing, and that the nature of the aggregate set of beliefs is predictive of their general attitudes and intentions to allow their children to view, as well as children's estimated viewing rates. Analyses also uncover multiple dimensions within the full set of beliefs, which explain more variance in mothers' attitudes and intentions and children's viewing than the uni-dimensional index. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.