Standard deviation? The role of perceived behavioural control in procedural violations

• Intention to commit violations is related to perceived behavioural control (PBC).
• The relationship can be explained in terms of two factors, with distinct effects.
• Specific beliefs within PBC may be linearly or non-linearly related to intention.
• Therefore the relationship is more complex than previous studies might have assumed.

Procedural violations – behaviours that are not intended to cause harm but that deviate from established protocols or guidelines – are commonly understood from the perspective of social psychological models, including the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The current study aims to examine the relationship between one aspect of the theory – perceived behavioural control (PBC) – and anaesthetists’ intentions to commit violations in the course of their work. 629 anaesthetists in the United Kingdom responded to a questionnaire including three hypothetical scenarios, each of which included a violation. Factor analysis of the questionnaire data found the presence of a two-factor structure (reflecting perceived controllability and perceived difficulty) accounting for the relationship between the control beliefs comprising PBC and intention to commit each violation. A regression analysis found that, in two of the scenarios, some control beliefs had a curvilinear relationship; behavioural intention was strongest when these beliefs are rated as “neutral” (not having a strong facilitative or inhibitive effect on behaviour). The study findings suggest that PBC has a complex relationship with behavioural intention that should be accounted for when applying the TPB to violations.