The attitude-behavior relationship in the domain of cultural consumption: A case of museums' festivals

In this paper, comparative analysis of two research studies about museum festivals' audience is presented (Museum Night 2012, N = 1480, and Museums of Serbia 2016, N = 2472). Both studies were designed according to the cultural consumption paradigm and the models about attitude-behavior relationship. Based on the distinction between the attitude towards the object and the attitude towards the behavior, both research studies included: attitudes towards museums, attitudes towards visiting museums, and frequency of museum visits during the past year. The main goals were to compare the audiences of two festivals (their attitudes and behavior), and to analyze the predictive power of two measures of attitude (towards museums and towards visiting museums) for visiting museums during the past year as a criterion variable. Results show that attitudes towards museums are somewhat more positive at the festival 'Museums of Serbia', but the patterns at both festivals are basically the same: the lowest scores are for attribute pairs static - dynamic and boring - interesting, while the highest scores are for non-educative -educative and useless - useful. Attitude towards the behavior is a better predictor for visiting museums than the attitude towards the object. Results have been discussed in the framework of past findings of the higher predictive power of attitude towards the behavior in other domains of human behavior, while the attitude towards museums has been interpreted as an indicator of a general perception of museums by the public. Practical implications of the results were emphasized: the possibilities for repositioning museums as places which could combine the leisure and the educative roles in society