Objectives: Adherence to behavioral non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is key to control COVID-19 infection rates. However, rates have decreased globally, and the potentially modifiable determinants of ongoing adherence and their interaction with social and physical momentary environments are still poorly understood. Here, we comprehensively examine within-person variations and between-person differences in known behavioral determinants (capability, motivation), as well as the moderating role of situationally variable environmental factors (opportunity) in predicting adherence with hygiene and distance-related NPIs. Methods: Ecological momentary assessment study over six months with monthly assessment bouts (four days each, five daily assessments) in 623 German adults. Repeated daily assessments of Capability-Opportunity-Motivation model of behavior (COM-B) factors. Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models were estimated to examine main effects of COM-B factors and moderating effects of momentary environmental factors. Results: Momentary adherence to NPIs was predicted by within-person changes in COM-B factors (motivation: intentions, goal conflict, control beliefs; opportunities: regulations, norms). Between-person differences in capabilities (habit strength) and motivation (intentions, control beliefs) predicted adherence across situations. Situation-specific environmental factors moderated the motivation-behavior association (regulation measures increased; goal conflict, and non-adherent others decreased the association). Conclusions: Individual momentary (within-person) and stable (between-person) motivation indicators predicted adherence. However, situational environmental factors such as regulations or norms have strong main effects and moderate the motivation-behavior translation. These findings have policy implications, supporting recent claims to not rely on the narrative of “personal responsibility”, but instead combine health education measures to increase individual motivation with consistent regulation.

Smoking is one of the leading causes of non-communicable disease mortality and morbidity. Smoking behaviour is determined by both stable, person-level (e.g., motivation, nicotine dependence) and variable, situation-level factors (e.g., urges, cues). However, most theoretical approaches to understanding health behaviours so far have not integrated these two spheres of influence. Temporal Self-Regulation Theory (TST) integrates these person-level and situation-level factors, but has not yet been comprehensively applied to predicting smoking behaviour. We use Ecological Momentary Assessment to examine the utility of TST in predicting daily smoking. 46 smokers reported individual and environmental cues right after smoking and at random time points during the day. Cognitions, self-control, past behaviour, and nicotine dependence were assessed at baseline. Multi-level logistic regressions show that smoking is largely guided by momentary cues, but individual motivation can buffer their influence. This suggests that TST is a useful integrative approach to understand modifiable determinants of smoking and thus intervention targets.

Background Health-related misinformation on social media is a key challenge to effective and timely public health responses. Existing mitigation measures include flagging misinformation or providing links to correct information, but they have not yet targeted social processes. Current approaches focus on increasing scrutiny, providing corrections to misinformation (debunking), or alerting users prospectively about future misinformation (prebunking and inoculation). Here, we provide a test of a complementary strategy that focuses on the social processes inherent in social media use, in particular, social reinforcement, social identity, and injunctive norms. Objective This study aimed to examine whether providing balanced social reference cues (ie, cues that provide information on users sharing and, more importantly, not sharing specific content) in addition to flagging COVID-19–related misinformation leads to reductions in sharing behavior and improvement in overall sharing quality. Methods A total of 3 field experiments were conducted on Twitter’s native social media feed (via a newly developed browser extension). Participants’ feed was augmented to include misleading and control information, resulting in 4 groups: no-information control, Twitter’s own misinformation warning (misinformation flag), social cue only, and combined misinformation flag and social cue. We tracked the content shared or liked by participants. Participants were provided with social information by referencing either their personal network on Twitter or all Twitter users. Results A total of 1424 Twitter users participated in 3 studies (n=824, n=322, and n=278). Across all 3 studies, we found that social cues that reference users’ personal network combined with a misinformation flag reduced the sharing of misleading but not control information and improved overall sharing quality. We show that this improvement could be driven by a change in injunctive social norms (study 2) but not social identity (study 3). Conclusions Social reference cues combined with misinformation flags can significantly and meaningfully reduce the amount of COVID-19–related misinformation shared and improve overall sharing quality. They are a feasible and scalable way to effectively curb the sharing of COVID-19–related misinformation on social media.

Person–environment interactions play a crucial role in the process of emotional experience. While Regulatory Focus Theory has been adopted to illustrate how some goal‐oriented parts of this process might shape by proposing a regulatory fit between individual and environmental characteristics, whether this fit not only implies feeling “right” but feeling “good” or at least cope better, has not been tested empirically. In this study, we extend earlier research on the influence of the regulatory fit to the generation and regulation of emotions. We additionally emphasize the role of the context, by integrating current work on group‐based emotion regulation in comparing single and group environments. We used a within‐subjects design, with 2 (situational focus) × 2 (single/group environment) levels. Thirty‐two male football players participated in one football‐specific task per level. Emotional experience and cognitive regulation strategies were measured after each. Multilevel regression showed, that a regulatory fit predicted more passive‐negative emotions in both the environments and more active‐negative emotions in the group environments. The Regulatory fit predicted stronger use of functional regulation strategies in the single but less in the group environment. Group membership predicted stronger use of group‐based regulation strategies and weaker use of other strategies—thus indicating further constraints and new ways to cope. We discuss the counter‐intuitive results regarding emotional experience in the light of the athletic context as well as theoretical accounts of regulatory fit and its role in the moderating motivational intensity and the value assignment. Results regarding the influence of group membership are integrated into current research and we highlight the directions for future research.