Health goal priming as a situated intervention tool: how to benefit from nonconscious motivational routes to health behaviour

Abstract

Recent research has shown the limited effects of intentions on behaviour, so that novel methods to facilitate behaviour change are needed that do not rely on conscious intentions. Here, it is argued that nonintentional effects on health behaviour, such as the effects of habits, impulses, and nonconscious goals, occur through the activation of cognitive structures by specific situations. Interventions should therefore be situated to change these effects, either by changing the critical cognitive structures (training interventions), or by changing which cognitive structures get activated (cueing interventions). The current article presents this framework for situated interventions, as well as examples of interventions of each type. Then, it introduces goal priming as a cueing intervention tool to activate health goals and thus facilitate healthier behaviour, even in tempting situations that typically activate short-term hedonic goals. Following a review of empirical evidence, five principles for the effective application of health goal primes are proposed, namely (1) to target individuals who value the primed goals, (2) by activating their specific motivation, (3) through effective cues (4) that attract attention at the right time. Finally, (5) an effective goal-directed behaviour needs to be known and accessible to the primed individual. These principles are illustrated with examples of different health behaviours in order to facilitate their application for successful behaviour change.

Non-conscious processes and dual-process theories in health psychology

“…Effects of implicit measures measured using response latency or priming on health behaviour were less clear and effects were, by comparison, less strong. The final contribution by Papies (2016b) outlines how health psychologists can capitalise on non-conscious processes to change behaviour using implicit health goal priming. Her analysis indicates that non-conscious control over health behaviours does not mean that intervention methods to change health behaviour are redundant.…”

Consumption Simulations Induce Salivation to Food Cues

“…As we suggest that simulations of consumption induce appetitive responses, modulating these simulations is an important starting point for interventions. The priming of health goals is one approach to reduce simulations of consumption [20], which then subsequently prevents the appetitive behavior [51,52]. Overall, the grounded framework may be a useful starting point for the development of interventions to prevent undesired appetitive responses (see also [51]).…”

Right Here, Right Now: Situated Interventions to Change Consumer Habits

“…The situated cognition perspective provides a general cognitive mechanism that can account for a variety of automatic, cue-driven behaviors including, but not limited to, habits (for overviews, see Barsalou 2016aBarsalou 2016bPapies and Barsalou 2015;Papies 2016aPapies 2016bPapies 2017.…”