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Sometimes one needs to classify individuals into groups, but there is no available grouping information due to social desirability bias in reporting behavior like unethical or dishonest intentions or unlawful actions. Assessing hard-to-detect behaviors is useful; however it is methodologically difficult because people are unlikely to self-disclose bad actions. This paper presents an unsupervised classification methodology utilizing ordinal categorical predictor variables. It allows for classification, individual respondent ranking, and grouping without access to a dependent group indicator variable. The methodology also measures predictor variable worth (for determining target behavior group membership) at a predictor variable category-by-category level, so different variable response categories can contain different amounts of information about classification. It is asymmetric in that a "0" on a binary predictor does not have a similar impact toward signaling "membership in the target group" as a "1" has for signaling "membership in the non-target group." The methodology is illustrated by identifying Spanish consumers filing fraudulent insurance claims. A second illustration classifies Portuguese high school student's propensity to alcohol abuse. Results show the methodology is useful when it is difficult to get dependent variable information, and is useful for deciding which predictor variables and categorical response options are most important.

This study examines the effects of objective (factual information) and subjective knowledge (an individual's self-assessment of how much knowledge they have) on information-seeking intentions and source preferences. It explores the human papillomavirus (HPV) knowledge inequalities in groups of young adults age 18-26 years with and without vaccinations and diagnosis, and different demographics/socio-economic and perceptions of health status. Higher subjective HPV knowledge leads to greater information-seeking intentions from family/friends and mass media but not from health professionals and the Internet. Objective HPV knowledge did not matter for information seeking. The important role of demographics/socio-economic and perceived health status is also discussed.

The college population is an important target group for AIDS risk behavior demarketing. While college students appear to be factually knowledgeable they reportedly often engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. This study sheds light on this incongruity by investigating free association images of AIDS and the salient emotions revealed about the disease. The results suggest that students perceive strongly the finality of the disease with fear and sadness representing the most salient emotions. However, men and women may need to be treated as distinct demarketing and promotional targets. Males and females differ in their image of AIDS which may necessitate developing different promotional messages for each of them in order to more effectively influence attitudinal and behavioral change.

This research assesses the degree and type of prevailing misinformation about AIDS transmission, as well as the relationship between misinformation, prior information exposure, and perceptions of health policy issues related to AIDS. It also identifies pockets of misinformation to provide a basis for targeting health policy and AIDS education campaigns.

Previous literature provides insight into the importance of beliefs and other intrapersonal variables for health-related information acquisition and behavioral change. The results of an empirical investigation evidence the unique strength of the role of core health beliefs for each of the multi-level measures. Directions for the development of effective marketing strategy are discussed.

Behavioral researchers are often faced with the need to identify complex multivariate relationships. Statistical information theory provides a framework for quantifying in a single value the proportion of total information in one set of measures (Y) explained by another set of measures (X). It also quantifies the amount of redundant information and allows for asymmetry of explained information between variables. The general information theoretic approach is presented and illustrated using measures of affect, cognition and behavior. A statistically significant and asymmetric information theoretic relationship is found among the variables: affect (like/dislike) provides a higher percentage of information about behavior (shopping frequency) than behavior does about affect. In addition, affect provides a higher percentage of information about behavior than does perceived location convenience.