Summary of lecture and knowledge clips of From Theory to Intervention

Hoorcollege 1: introduction
Behavior
- Many societal, health and wellbeing, and organizational issues are
dependent on or influenced by human behavior.
- Behavior change techniques can have a big impact on these issues –
and you are the expert!

Complexity of behavior:
- Health behavior determinants:
o Knowledge.
 About health.
 About what healthy behavior entails.
 About consequences of behavior.
o Skills.
 Self-regulation.
 Obtaining knowledge.
 Impact on behavior.
 Impact on environment.
o Motivation.
 Intrinsic motivation.
 Incentives.
o Environment.
 Cues for behavior.
 Social support.
 Complexity.

Some core theory concepts:
- Intention:
o Intention-behavior gap.
 Interventions that focus on intention, but translation to
behavior is not optimal.
o Self-regulation.
 More self-regulation -> more bridging between intention
and behavior.
- Automatic behavior:
o Habits.
o Impulse.
o Nudging.
- Norms:
o Injunctive.
o Descriptive.

Interventions:
- Who has this knowledge?
- Who makes these interventions?
- Interventions don’t always target actual determinants of behavior.
o For example:
 Providing information/education.
 Telling people what to do.

,  Trying to scare people into behaving a certain way.

Effective behavior change
Assumption: attitude -> intention -> behavior
- Example: yelling at medical personnel is wrong, I should not do that -
> aggression decreases.
- Example: underage drinking is dangerous, so let’s not do that ->
drinking behavior decreases.
- Example: snacking on sugary and fatty foods is unhealthy, so I will
no longer do that -> consumption and body weight decreases.




Meta-analysis on intention-behavior association -> successful
interventions lead to medium to large effects on intention and small to
medium effects on behavior. Something happens in-between such as self-
regulation, impulses.
- Only 28% of intentions translate to behaviors.
- Moderators:
o Control. If you think you can change something yourself.
o Habit.
o Impulse.
o Social context.
- Intention is important, but focusing only on intention will not give
effectiveness you are looking for.

If it’s not intention:
- Environmental cues trigger:
o Habits.
o Impulses.
o Goals (sometimes conflicting).
o (social) norms.

, Based on previously learned associations.

Example: social norms:
- Injunctive norms: (perceived) expectancy of what others think of
your behavior; what you are ought to do.
- Descriptive norms: what do others do?
Descriptive norms are strong predictors of behavior.

(Anti-)social norms
Broken window theory -> does a visible breaking of a rule/norm result in
other norms shifting?
- Situation where rule is already broken -> more likely to break other
social norms.

Intervention implications:
- What are determinants of the behavior?
- Under which conditions do the behavior take place?
- What process guides this behavior?
- Focus on attitudes and intentions?
- Focus on norms, context cues, associations, habits?

Theory-driven interventions
By systematically using available knowledge and theory about human
behavior, better and more effective interventions can be designed and
implemented.
- System: PATHS method.
o A guideline for the process of an intervention.
o A general approach that can encompass different intervention
methods.

PATHS
- Problem: identifying and defining the problem.
o Is this a concrete, applied problem for which psychological
theory can offer a solution?
o A process within a process: from problem-to-problem
definition.




- Analysis: developing theory-based explanations.