Allen Erwin Liska (May 15, 1940 – December 17, 1998 in Albany,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

) was an American sociologist and criminologist. He was a full professor at the

University at Albany, SUNY The State University of New York at Albany (University at Albany, UAlbany, or SUNY Albany) is a Public university, public research university in Albany, New York, United States. Founded in 1844, it is one of four "university centers" of the St ...

from 1982 until his death in 1998, having originally joined the faculty there in 1979. From 1985 to 1988, he was the chair of the Department of Sociology there. He supervised more Ph.D. students than any other faculty member in the University at Albany, SUNY's sociology department. During his career, he also served as chair of the

American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fi ...

's Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance. He was named a fellow of the

American Society of Criminology The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is an international organization based on the campus of Ohio State University whose members focus on the study of crime and delinquency. It aims to grow and disseminate scholarly research, with members wo ...

in November 1998. In 1999, he was one of four University at Albany, SUNY faculty members to receive the university's Excellence in Research Award.

Fishbein/Ajzen model evaluation

In 1984 Liska stated that the 1975 Fishbein/Azjen model had brought significant order to earlier "other variables" research on inconsistencies between people's attitude and behavior, but argued that the Fishbein/Ajzen model was not "complex enough to organize and coordinate much contemporary research." Liska reviewed research showing deviations from the two defining features of the Fishbein/Ajzen model: the assumptions that the effect of an individual's social environment on his or her behavior is expressed through behavioral intentions, and that the effect of the individual's social environment on these behavioral intentions can be assumed to be solely a function of two intermediaries, individual attitudes and social norms. Liska described and illustrated a set of specific expansions to the Fishbein/Ajzen model, and proposed a much more intricate model which incorporated most of these more specific expansions. Richard A. Davis evaluated Liska's revisions of the Fishbein/Ajzen model using a study where the 1970 educational attainments of a set of high school students were modeled, based on information collected in 1955 when the students were high school sophomores. Davis found partial support for the Fishbein/Ajzen model, since in predicting a sophomore's ultimate educational attainment "behavioral intentions maintain their centrality." At the same time, Davis found that the social environment of the high school sophomores "maintains a direct unmediated effect on both intentions" (bypassing direct influence of the sophomores' individual attitudes and social norms) "and behavior" (bypassing direct influence of the sophomores' behavioral intentions). Davis concluded that, despite the valuable parsimony of the Fishbein/Ajzen model, "Liska's revisions have been supported in large measure."

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* 1940 births 1998 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University at Albany, SUNY faculty American criminologists {{US-sociologist-stub