J.P. van 't Riet

The importance of habits in eating behaviour: an overview and recommendations for future research

There is ample evidence to suggest that a significant part of daily eating behaviours consists of habits. In line with this, the concept of habit is increasingly incorporated into studies investigating the behavioural and psychosocial determinants of food choice, yielding evidence that habit is one of the most powerful predictors of eating behaviour. Research shows that habitual behaviour is fundamentally different from non-habitual behaviour: when behaviour is habitual, people require little information to make decisions, intentions are poor predictors of behaviour, and behaviour is triggered by situational cues. These insights have vast implications for research in the food domain that are only just beginning to be addressed. Also, theorizing on habits has important implications for behaviour change interventions, yet few interventions that are based on habit theory have been tested in a food context. The present article provides an overview of habit research and discusses possibilities to increase our knowledge of the role of habits in eating behaviour. It is shown that interventions targeting habitual behaviour can try to (i) change the situation that triggers the habitual behaviour, (ii) promote or inhibit the habitual response and (iii) change relevant contingencies. These insights can act as a starting point for future intervention research.

Defensive reactions to health-promoting information: an overview and implications for future research

Abstract It is a common finding that recipients of threatening health-promoting information are motivated to dismiss or disregard the information, thus reacting ‘defensively’. This article gives an overview of the literature on defensive reactions to health-promoting information. A distinction is made between: (1) avoidance, (2) denial, (3) cognitive reappraisal and (4) suppression. Although these defensive reactions have been studied repeatedly and thoroughly, we propose that a number of questions remain unanswered. First, little is known about whether avoidance, denial, cognitive reappraisal and suppression have distinct or similar effects on emotional experience and health-conducive behaviour. Second, little is known about the development of defensive reactions over time in case recipients are repeatedly exposed to health-promoting information, which is often the case in a real-life setting. In the present article, we present preliminary answers to these questions, suggesting that cognitive reappraisal has greater potential to result in effective emotion regulation and is more likely to impede healthy behaviour than the other three strategies. We also propose that defensive reactions to health-promoting information do not always reduce health-conducive responses but can co-occur with more adaptive responses or even facilitate them. Finally, we present a hypothesised model of the development of defensiveness over time.

Investigating message-framing effects in the context of a tailored intervention promoting physical activity

Health-promoting messages can be framed in terms of the gains associated with healthy behaviour or the losses associated with unhealthy behaviour. It has been argued that gain-framed messages promoting physical activity (PA) are more effective than loss-framed messages, but empirical findings are inconsistent. Also, no previous studies investigated the effects of gain- and loss-framed messages in the context of a computer-tailored PA intervention. In this study, we provided participants with computer-generated tailored feedback concerning their PA levels. In total, 787 participants entered in the study, of whom 299 completed all measures at a 3-month follow-up. We investigated whether gain- and loss-framed messages promoting PA affected information acceptance, attitude, intention and behaviour differently. The results showed that gain-framed messages resulted in stronger intentions to be physically active than loss-framed messages. This did not result in a significant increase in actual PA, however, as measured by a 3-month follow-up assessment. For information acceptance and attitude, a non-significant advantage of gain-framed messages was found. All effects had small effect sizes. Thus, whereas gain-framed information might be more persuasive than loss-framed information when it comes to promoting PA, the differences between gain- and loss-framed messages are likely to be small.

Self-efficacy as a potential moderator of the effects of framed health messages

This study focuses on self-efficacy as a potential moderator of the effects of gain- and loss-framed health messages. Undergraduate students (N = 124) received a gain- or loss-framed message about consuming ecological meat. The data revealed that for participants high in self-efficacy, the gain-framed message resulted in consuming more ecological meat than the loss-framed message. Moreover it was found that — within the gain-frame condition — participants low in self-efficacy scored higher on measures of defensive processing than participants high in self-efficacy. This study provides further evidence for the role of self-efficacy as a potential moderator of the effects of framed health messages.

Preaching to the choir? The influence of personal relevance on the effects of gain- and loss-framed health-promoting messages:

This article examines the moderating influence of personal relevance on the persuasive effects of gain- and loss-framed messages. We assessed current behaviour as a proxy for personal relevance, provided 169 participants with gain- and loss-framed messages advocating skin self-examination (SSE) and assessed intention to engage in SSE as the outcome measure. The results showed that loss-framed information was more persuasive than gain-framed information, but only for low-relevance participants. This suggests that loss-framed information might be mainly effective for recipients who need little persuading and, in fact, runs the risk of ‘preaching to the choir’.

Avoidance orientation moderates the effect of threatening messages

This study investigated the influence of individual differences in people’s dispositional avoidance orientation on the persuasive effects of low- and high-threat messages promoting moderate drinking. First, participents (N = 99) individual differences in avoidance orientation were assessed, after which they were provided with either high- or low-threat messages about the consequences of drinking too much alcohol. The primary outcome measures were information acceptance, attitude and intention. Results showed that participants low in avoidance orientation were more likely to be persuaded by the low-threat message, whereas participants high in avoidance orientation were more likely to be persuaded by the high-threat message.