Health behaviour change
Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Intentions describe the route of action in terms of direction and intensity. However, with regard to health behaviour, only every second person succeeds in translating intentions into action (Sheeran, 2002). Procrastination, forgetting, and missing good opportunities to act constitute common reasons for failure and turn health behaviour change into a challenge for an individual’s self-regulatory competencies (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). Self-regulatory processes that facilitate behaviour change in face of such barriers for action, are action planning and coping planning (e.g., Gollwitzer, 1999; Leventhal, Singer, & Jones, 1965; Sniehotta, Schwarzer, Scholz, & Schüz, 2005). Targeting these planning processes in interventions can support bridging the gap between intentions and behaviour (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of health behaviour change by investigating differential effects of planning processes. Therefore, the interplay between intentions, planning processes, and health behaviour was investigated at different levels of intentions. Moreover, the differential effectiveness of planning interventions in different stage groups was examined, and the factors and working mechanisms that account for intervention effects on health-related outcomes in field settings. Moreover, the role of planning processes as predictor of transitions between different stages of behaviour change was tested. The theoretical rationale of this thesis was based on the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA; Schwarzer, 1992; 2008), which integrates assumptions from continuum and stage models of health behaviour. The theory-derived hypotheses were tested in five experimental and correlational studies in various samples (patients, employees of a company, and internet users) and across different behavioural domains (physical activity, dietary behaviour, and oral self-care behaviour). The main findings attest the beneficial effects of planning processes to reduce the gap between intentions and behaviour. The hypothesised interrelations between intentions, planning cognitions, and behaviour were confirmed to vary in accordance to levels of intentions as modelled by moderated mediation. This implies that theory refinement might gain from modelling interrelations beyond simple mediation and moderation models. Furthermore, planning processes, along with other social-cognitive variables derived from the HAPA, showed differential prediction patterns of stage transitions, and thus, lend support to the assumption that the model is useful to describe behaviour change within a stage-theoretical approach. In two experimental studies, combined action planning and coping planning interventions improved health behaviour and body mass index through changes in self-regulatory planning processes. In particular, effects of the planning intervention differed between people in different stages of behaviour change (intenders and actors). These differences were identified to rely on the numbers of generated plans in the intervention. Moreover, the working mechanism of the intervention was explained by main and interactive effects of action planning and coping planning. Thus, planning interventions might focus on stimulating action planning and coping planning processes beyond the intervention to induce health-related outcomes, and the number of plans should be considered in future applications. The theoretical considerations and empirical results may guide the development of theory- and evidence-based interventions: The findings underline the usefulness of targeting planning strategies in interventions in field settings. Interventions may be matched to the participants’ needs and characteristics. The demonstration of the applied methodological approaches (e.g., moderated mediation, multiple mediation, three-path mediation, and threshold models) may inform the evaluation procedures of future theory-based interventions.
Author: Wiedemann, Amelie Ulrike
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1484147934