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Does Intention Strength Moderate the Intention–Health Behavior Relationship

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Mark Conner discusses whether intention strength moderates intention–health behavior relations and the extent to which this is accounted for by the moderating effects of intention stability, goal priority, and goal conflict.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 22, 2024

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This video video discusses research on behavior change, focusing on the importance of modifiable predictors such as behavioral intentions. These intentions, particularly their strength, play a crucial role in predicting whether individuals will change their behavior, like increasing fruit and vegetable consumption or adhering to COVID-19 protective measures.

Key findings include that strong intentions are more predictive of behavior than weak intentions, and the relationship between intentions and behavior is often affected by the stability of those intentions and the priorities people assign to them. The "intention-behavior gap" reveals that even among those who intend to change, many do not follow through, highlighting the need to bridge this gap.

The study involved recruiting a representative sample of UK adults, who completed questionnaires measuring their intentions and behaviors related to COVID-19 safety practices over time. Findings suggest that strong intentions lead to more stable behaviors, and several methods to strengthen intentions were identified, such as increasing knowledge about the behavior, emphasizing its importance, and linking it to personal values.

Implications of the findings indicate that interventions aimed at enhancing intention strength can be effective in promoting behavior change, especially regarding public health and safety behaviors. This video video also calls for future research to explore manipulating intention strength in practical applications and to confirm findings with objective behavioral measures.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.265 --> 00:01.515
It's part of a longer tradition

00:01.615 --> 00:04.115
of looking at modifiable predictors of behavior.

00:04.215 --> 00:06.555
So there's been longstanding interest in

00:06.555 --> 00:08.475
how you change behavior,

00:08.815 --> 00:12.475
and a particular focus on the things that might sort of,

00:12.585 --> 00:15.355
help explain why behavior change actually occurs.

00:15.815 --> 00:18.475
Um, these are sometimes referred to as mechanisms of action.

00:19.175 --> 00:22.595
Um, there the, the target of interventions designed

00:22.615 --> 00:23.715
to produce behavior change.

00:23.815 --> 00:26.315
So if you want to say increase fruit

00:26.315 --> 00:29.075
and vegetable consumption, you might decide it's people's

00:29.315 --> 00:30.435
attitude towards fruit

00:30.435 --> 00:32.115
and vegetable consumption that you want to change.

00:33.055 --> 00:36.555
Um, so behavioral intentions, so these are things like

00:37.315 --> 00:39.955
questions tap by questions like I intend to eat,

00:40.055 --> 00:41.795
say five fruit vegetables per day.

00:42.005 --> 00:45.435
These long been identified as the strongest predictor

00:45.435 --> 00:47.595
of behavior and they're also modifiable.

00:47.655 --> 00:49.795
So that's why there's a lot of interest in them.

00:49.945 --> 00:51.475
Even though they're good predictors,

00:51.475 --> 00:52.755
they're not perfect predictors.

00:52.815 --> 00:55.795
So, they probably only explain about 20%

00:55.815 --> 00:57.755
of the variance in behavior overall.

00:58.255 --> 01:01.075
Um, so another way of putting this is that even

01:01.075 --> 01:03.715
amongst intends only about half of them go on

01:03.715 --> 01:04.955
to actually inform the behavior.

01:06.055 --> 01:07.995
And this idea is sometimes referred to

01:07.995 --> 01:09.595
as the intention behavior gap.

01:09.895 --> 01:11.475
And there's lots of interest in sort

01:11.475 --> 01:14.315
of can we bridge this gap between intentions and behavior?

01:14.575 --> 01:17.395
And that's where our research comes in saying, well,

01:17.405 --> 01:20.435
maybe the strength of the intention is one of these things

01:20.435 --> 01:22.915
that can try and bridge the gap between,

01:22.915 --> 01:24.075
intentions and behavior.

01:24.975 --> 01:28.355
Um, so strong intentions are more stable over time

01:28.375 --> 01:31.035
and they're also thought to be more predictive of behavior.

01:31.775 --> 01:33.315
Um, so they actually try

01:33.315 --> 01:35.475
and help bridge this intention behavior gap.

01:35.895 --> 01:37.955
And although there's quite a few definitions

01:38.215 --> 01:41.595
of intention strength, a lot of them emphasize the idea of

01:41.775 --> 01:44.875
how important the behavior is, how certain you are in,

01:44.875 --> 01:46.595
in your intention, how much

01:46.595 --> 01:47.915
knowledge you've got about the behavior.

01:48.295 --> 01:52.035
So our focus was on the idea of intention strength as

01:52.555 --> 01:54.795
a moderator of this intention, behavior, relationship.

01:55.095 --> 01:57.195
In other words, reducing this relationship

01:57.195 --> 01:59.675
between intentions and subsequent behavior.

02:00.175 --> 02:01.875
So we've got three specific aims.

02:01.895 --> 02:04.555
So one is first of all, assessing,

02:04.655 --> 02:06.235
the intention behavior relationship

02:06.335 --> 02:07.955
for covid protection behaviors.

02:08.455 --> 02:10.235
The second one is saying, well,

02:10.295 --> 02:12.715
is this relationship different for those

02:12.745 --> 02:14.675
with strong versus weak intentions?

02:15.215 --> 02:16.955
And then the third one is saying, well,

02:17.215 --> 02:19.915
if there is this moderation effect of intention, strength,

02:20.055 --> 02:22.995
strength on intention behavior, what explains that?

02:23.975 --> 02:27.155
So what we did was we recruited a sample who were

02:27.755 --> 02:29.635
represented of UK adults in terms

02:29.635 --> 02:31.395
of age, sex, and ethnicity.

02:31.735 --> 02:35.235
Um, they were recruited online during the pandemic around,

02:35.415 --> 02:39.235
2022, sorry, it's Christmas 2021.

02:39.575 --> 02:41.355
Um, and there's about 500 of them.

02:41.855 --> 02:44.075
And what the respondents did was they completed a

02:44.195 --> 02:46.355
questionnaire measuring intentions, the strength

02:46.355 --> 02:48.315
of intentions, the past behavior,

02:48.775 --> 02:52.595
and then some other predictors of a series of behaviors

02:52.595 --> 02:55.275
that were, held to be useful in terms

02:55.275 --> 02:56.955
of protecting us against, covid.

02:57.135 --> 02:58.835
So these were things recommended by

02:58.835 --> 03:00.220
The, the World Health Organization.

03:00.220 --> 03:02.885
They were things like wearing a face mask,

03:03.445 --> 03:06.285
maintaining a social distance, avoiding closed spaces,

03:06.925 --> 03:09.085
cleaning services regularly covering your mouth

03:09.105 --> 03:10.525
and nose when, coughing

03:10.525 --> 03:13.245
or sneezing, meeting people outside rather than indoors,

03:13.465 --> 03:14.645
and then opening a window

03:14.865 --> 03:17.045
to actually increase natural weather ventilation.

03:17.625 --> 03:19.365
So that's what we did at time one.

03:19.755 --> 03:24.725
Then, a month, two months later, they came back,

03:24.825 --> 03:28.565
online and actually completed measures of intention again,

03:28.865 --> 03:30.845
but also whether they'd actually engaged in

03:30.845 --> 03:32.005
those same a behaviors.

03:32.145 --> 03:34.645
And we were particularly interested in can we predict

03:34.665 --> 03:37.725
who engaged in those eight behaviors at time two from the

03:37.725 --> 03:38.845
predictors at time one.

03:39.225 --> 03:41.525
Now one of the interesting things about the design is

03:41.525 --> 03:43.445
that we've got eight different behaviors.

03:43.705 --> 03:46.645
So we actually have to engage in,

03:46.755 --> 03:50.045
some statistical analysis to actually ensure that we control

03:50.265 --> 03:53.685
for the fact that each person can complete eight behaviors,

03:53.985 --> 03:56.205
and then we can look at this relationship

03:56.205 --> 03:57.325
between people's intention

03:57.625 --> 03:59.485
and then whether they went on to do the behavior.

03:59.785 --> 04:01.965
So the first bit was what was the relationship

04:01.965 --> 04:03.005
between intention behavior?

04:03.185 --> 04:05.645
So, for these eight behaviors,

04:05.645 --> 04:07.045
then the average correlation

04:07.045 --> 04:09.085
between people's intention at time one, one

04:09.265 --> 04:10.885
and then whether they perform the behavior

04:10.905 --> 04:14.205
or not, two months later was 0.45.

04:14.585 --> 04:16.205
So that's 19%

04:16.205 --> 04:18.605
of the variance in behavior explained by people's intention.

04:18.865 --> 04:21.885
So that's pretty average for these sorts of studies.

04:22.425 --> 04:25.525
Um, but most importantly, not most importantly.

04:25.525 --> 04:27.005
Second most importantly was that,

04:27.235 --> 04:29.205
this effect remained when you actually control

04:29.225 --> 04:30.365
for time one behavior.

04:30.425 --> 04:33.005
So we're actually predicting change in behavior.

04:33.145 --> 04:36.125
So the more you intend to do it, the more likely you are

04:36.125 --> 04:37.205
to take up that behavior,

04:37.205 --> 04:38.765
even though over a two month period,

04:39.705 --> 04:42.045
the most important finding for us was though, was that

04:42.045 --> 04:45.885
that size of relationship was, differed depending on

04:45.885 --> 04:49.525
how strongly, you intention was formed.

04:49.905 --> 04:53.765
So those who had weak intentions versus strong intentions,

04:53.795 --> 04:54.925
then the effect

04:54.925 --> 04:57.325
of intention on subsequent behavior roughly doubled

04:57.325 --> 04:58.445
between those two groups.

04:59.025 --> 05:00.325
So in other words,

05:01.025 --> 05:03.245
strong intentions are better predictive behavior.

05:03.945 --> 05:05.685
And as, as you asked then the idea

05:05.685 --> 05:06.765
is, well, what's the mechanism?

05:07.025 --> 05:10.245
Why did that happen? Um, so the, the rest

05:10.245 --> 05:11.645
of the analysis focused on, well,

05:11.875 --> 05:13.125
what things might intervene

05:13.125 --> 05:14.485
between having a strong intention

05:14.585 --> 05:15.725
and then subsequently acting?

05:15.785 --> 05:17.445
We looked at three things. So one

05:17.445 --> 05:18.645
was stability of intention.

05:18.785 --> 05:20.805
So do intentions just stay the same

05:20.805 --> 05:21.965
between time upon time too?

05:21.965 --> 05:24.125
And that's, that's thought to be a key mechanism

05:24.265 --> 05:26.205
for why intentions predict behavior.

05:26.235 --> 05:27.725
They stay the same over time,

05:27.915 --> 05:30.245
therefore they're predictive of behavior over time.

05:30.665 --> 05:32.925
The second one was the idea of goal priority.

05:32.985 --> 05:35.765
So are you prioritizing that behavior or not?

05:35.865 --> 05:40.205
So does, strength lead to you prioritizing the behaviors

05:40.205 --> 05:41.725
that you feel really strongly about?

05:42.145 --> 05:45.085
Um, and then the third one, does it lead to you perceiving

05:45.085 --> 05:47.365
that there's less conflict between doing the thing you want

05:47.365 --> 05:50.205
to do, the target intention and then other things.

05:50.705 --> 05:53.885
And the fighting showed that, each of those moderators

05:54.525 --> 05:55.725
explains, sorry,

05:56.035 --> 05:58.235
they moderated the intention behavior relationship,

05:58.375 --> 06:01.075
but more importantly they explained this idea of the effect

06:01.075 --> 06:02.555
of intention strength on behavior.

06:02.655 --> 06:04.275
So in other words, what we're saying is that

06:05.255 --> 06:07.435
strong intentions are more predictive behavior

06:07.435 --> 06:09.515
because they lead to people,

06:09.515 --> 06:11.035
having more stable intentions

06:11.695 --> 06:14.635
to prioritizing those behaviors that they've got,

06:15.215 --> 06:17.195
you know, strong intentions towards

06:17.615 --> 06:20.595
and then not perceiving conflicts with other behaviors

06:20.815 --> 06:22.475
for those, for those particular behaviors.

06:22.795 --> 06:24.075
A few, a few different implications.

06:24.075 --> 06:26.155
Um, you know, the first one is the, the usual one.

06:26.175 --> 06:29.115
So we've confirmed this idea that if you want

06:29.115 --> 06:31.035
to change covid protection behaviors,

06:31.035 --> 06:32.715
then focus on intentions.

06:33.355 --> 06:36.395
I think the second one is this idea of, well, okay,

06:36.395 --> 06:39.755
another way to actually improve predictions of behavior is

06:39.755 --> 06:41.515
to actually focus on increasing strength.

06:41.655 --> 06:43.555
And there's five techniques

06:43.555 --> 06:44.915
that people have talked about in terms

06:44.915 --> 06:47.235
of increasing the strength of people's intentions.

06:47.335 --> 06:49.715
So, you can actually get people to

06:50.805 --> 06:52.035
learn more about the topic.

06:52.655 --> 06:55.275
The second one is you can emphasize the importance

06:55.275 --> 06:56.515
of these protection behaviors.

06:56.515 --> 06:58.595
So you know, we know all the, all

06:58.595 --> 07:00.155
of the terrible things that covid did.

07:00.335 --> 07:02.435
You know, if people are, are more aware of well

07:02.435 --> 07:04.435
that can actually affect you, then

07:04.625 --> 07:05.675
that can actually be important.

07:05.675 --> 07:06.755
And that leads on to the third one,

07:06.755 --> 07:09.075
which is targeting self-interest.

07:09.255 --> 07:10.715
So if you can emphasize

07:10.715 --> 07:12.875
that it's not only about protecting your own health

07:13.015 --> 07:16.635
but also the benefit of others that you love, then

07:16.635 --> 07:19.035
that can actually important increase in increasing strength.

07:19.375 --> 07:21.715
Fourth one was the idea of,

07:22.475 --> 07:24.115
identifying others who perform the health behavior.

07:24.175 --> 07:26.235
So if you can focus on others who are important to you,

07:26.235 --> 07:27.395
but also do it, then

07:27.395 --> 07:29.715
that can actually make you own intentions stronger.

07:29.855 --> 07:31.715
And then the last one is actually linking the health

07:31.875 --> 07:32.995
behavior to your own values.

07:33.375 --> 07:36.395
So you know, if you see it as important to protect others,

07:36.825 --> 07:38.995
then that leads to the actual,

07:38.995 --> 07:40.275
intention becoming stronger.

07:40.895 --> 07:43.035
And I think another thing that's interesting here is

07:43.035 --> 07:45.635
that these ways of targeting strength might be important

07:45.635 --> 07:48.875
because this effect on the stability of intentions.

07:49.135 --> 07:51.915
So as I said earlier, there's lots of research saying

07:52.465 --> 07:55.315
it's the stability of intentions that's key in terms

07:55.315 --> 07:56.835
of them having subsequent impact,

07:57.015 --> 07:58.595
but we haven't really identified much

07:58.595 --> 08:00.515
that makes people's intentions stable.

08:00.775 --> 08:02.315
So this might be one way of doing that.

08:02.535 --> 08:05.315
So you might actually, target these five things

08:05.315 --> 08:09.235
that are already talked about in order to actually,

08:09.235 --> 08:10.675
produce strong intentions.

08:10.975 --> 08:13.315
And these intentions actually becoming,

08:13.505 --> 08:14.835
much more predictive of behavior.

08:15.215 --> 08:17.835
And then another study we've, we've done on healthy eating,

08:18.015 --> 08:20.475
we showed that when your intentions are stable over

08:20.475 --> 08:21.635
something like six months,

08:21.985 --> 08:23.515
then your intentions actually predict

08:23.715 --> 08:24.755
behavior over 10 years.

08:25.095 --> 08:27.555
So it can be really quite important I think in doing that.

08:28.455 --> 08:29.835
So I think those are the main lessons.

08:29.995 --> 08:32.515
I think in terms of future research, I think, you know,

08:32.635 --> 08:34.635
a key thing would be you need to show

08:34.635 --> 08:37.915
that manipulating strength actually produces these effects.

08:37.935 --> 08:39.475
You know, do you really then produce

08:39.475 --> 08:41.195
changes, in behavior?

08:41.335 --> 08:43.115
And then the other one is this thing

08:43.115 --> 08:45.395
that psychologists are always interested in, which is,

08:45.695 --> 08:47.355
can we use or can we show these effects

08:47.355 --> 08:50.235
with objective measures of behavior, not just self reports.

08:50.615 --> 08:52.395
Um, people tend to overestimate,

08:52.975 --> 08:54.075
you know, what they're going to do.

08:54.635 --> 08:55.755
Although self-report

08:55.815 --> 08:57.755
and objective measures do tend to be quite high,

08:57.755 --> 08:59.795
highly related, but you'd also like always like to sort

08:59.795 --> 09:02.995
of confirm that really does work with objective measures

09:02.995 --> 09:03.355
of behavior.

Understanding Behavior Change and Intention Strength

00:00:00 - It's part of a longer tradition of looking at modifiable predictors of behavior. So there's been longstanding interest in how you change behavior, and a particular focus on the things that might sort of, help explain why behavior change actually occurs. these are sometimes referred to as mechanisms of action. there the, the target of interventions designed to produce behavior change. So if you want to say increase fruit and vegetable consumption, you might decide it's people's attitude towards fruit
00:00:33 - so behavioral intentions, so these are things like questions tap by questions like I intend to eat, say five fruit vegetables per day. These long been identified as the strongest predictor of behavior and they're also modifiable. So that's why there's a lot of interest in them. Even though they're good predictors, they're not perfect predictors. So, they probably only explain about 20% of the variance in behavior overall. so another way of putting this is that even
00:01:03 - to actually inform the behavior. And this idea is sometimes referred to as the intention behavior gap. And there's lots of interest in sort of can we bridge this gap between intentions and behavior? And that's where our research comes in saying, well, maybe the strength of the intention is one of these things that can try and bridge the gap between, intentions and behavior. so strong intentions are more stable over time and they're also thought to be more predictive of behavior.
00:01:33 - and help bridge this intention behavior gap. And although there's quite a few definitions of intention strength, a lot of them emphasize the idea of how important the behavior is, how certain you are in, in your intention, how much knowledge you've got about the behavior. So our focus was on the idea of intention strength as a moderator of this intention, behavior, relationship. In other words, reducing this relationship between intentions and subsequent behavior. So we've got three specific aims.
00:02:04 - the intention behavior relationship for covid protection behaviors. The second one is saying, well, is this relationship different for those with strong versus weak intentions? And then the third one is saying, well, if there is this moderation effect of intention, strength, strength on intention behavior, what explains that? So what we did was we recruited a sample who were represented of UK adults in terms of age, sex, and ethnicity. they were recruited online during the pandemic around,
00:02:39 - and there's about 500 of them. And what the respondents did was they completed a questionnaire measuring intentions, the strength of intentions, the past behavior, and then some other predictors of a series of behaviors that were, held to be useful in terms of protecting us against, covid. So these were things recommended by The, the World Health Organization. They were things like wearing a face mask, maintaining a social distance, avoiding closed spaces,

Predicting Behavior Through Intentions and Strength

00:03:09 - and nose when, coughing or sneezing, meeting people outside rather than indoors, and then opening a window to actually increase natural weather ventilation. So that's what we did at time one. Then, a month, two months later, they came back, online and actually completed measures of intention again, but also whether they'd actually engaged in those same a behaviors. And we were particularly interested in can we predict who engaged in those eight behaviors at time two from the
00:03:39 - Now one of the interesting things about the design is that we've got eight different behaviors. So we actually have to engage in, some statistical analysis to actually ensure that we control for the fact that each person can complete eight behaviors, and then we can look at this relationship between people's intention and then whether they went on to do the behavior. So the first bit was what was the relationship between intention behavior? So, for these eight behaviors, then the average correlation between people's intention at time one, one
00:04:10 - or not, two months later was 0.45. So that's 19% of the variance in behavior explained by people's intention. So that's pretty average for these sorts of studies. but most importantly, not most importantly. Second most importantly was that, this effect remained when you actually control for time one behavior. So we're actually predicting change in behavior. So the more you intend to do it, the more likely you are to take up that behavior, even though over a two month period,
00:04:42 - that size of relationship was, differed depending on how strongly, you intention was formed. So those who had weak intentions versus strong intentions, then the effect of intention on subsequent behavior roughly doubled between those two groups. So in other words, strong intentions are better predictive behavior. And as, as you asked then the idea is, well, what's the mechanism? Why did that happen? so the, the rest
00:05:11 - what things might intervene between having a strong intention and then subsequently acting? We looked at three things. So one was stability of intention. So do intentions just stay the same between time upon time too? And that's, that's thought to be a key mechanism for why intentions predict behavior. They stay the same over time, therefore they're predictive of behavior over time. The second one was the idea of goal priority. So are you prioritizing that behavior or not? So does, strength lead to you prioritizing the behaviors that you feel really strongly about?
00:05:45 - that there's less conflict between doing the thing you want to do, the target intention and then other things. And the fighting showed that, each of those moderators explains, sorry, they moderated the intention behavior relationship, but more importantly they explained this idea of the effect of intention strength on behavior. So in other words, what we're saying is that strong intentions are more predictive behavior because they lead to people, having more stable intentions to prioritizing those behaviors that they've got,

Enhancing Intentions for Effective Behavior Change

00:06:17 - and then not perceiving conflicts with other behaviors for those, for those particular behaviors. A few, a few different implications. you know, the first one is the, the usual one. So we've confirmed this idea that if you want to change covid protection behaviors, then focus on intentions. I think the second one is this idea of, well, okay, another way to actually improve predictions of behavior is to actually focus on increasing strength. And there's five techniques that people have talked about in terms of increasing the strength of people's intentions.
00:06:50 - learn more about the topic. The second one is you can emphasize the importance of these protection behaviors. So you know, we know all the, all of the terrible things that covid did. You know, if people are, are more aware of well that can actually affect you, then that can actually be important. And that leads on to the third one, which is targeting self-interest. So if you can emphasize that it's not only about protecting your own health but also the benefit of others that you love, then that can actually important increase in increasing strength.
00:07:22 - identifying others who perform the health behavior. So if you can focus on others who are important to you, but also do it, then that can actually make you own intentions stronger. And then the last one is actually linking the health behavior to your own values. So you know, if you see it as important to protect others, then that leads to the actual, intention becoming stronger. And I think another thing that's interesting here is that these ways of targeting strength might be important because this effect on the stability of intentions. So as I said earlier, there's lots of research saying
00:07:55 - of them having subsequent impact, but we haven't really identified much that makes people's intentions stable. So this might be one way of doing that. So you might actually, target these five things that are already talked about in order to actually, produce strong intentions. And these intentions actually becoming, much more predictive of behavior. And then another study we've, we've done on healthy eating, we showed that when your intentions are stable over something like six months, then your intentions actually predict
00:08:25 - So it can be really quite important I think in doing that. So I think those are the main lessons. I think in terms of future research, I think, you know, a key thing would be you need to show that manipulating strength actually produces these effects. You know, do you really then produce changes, in behavior? And then the other one is this thing that psychologists are always interested in, which is, can we use or can we show these effects with objective measures of behavior, not just self reports. people tend to overestimate, you know, what they're going to do.
00:09:02 - and objective measures do tend to be quite high, highly related, but you'd also like always like to sort of confirm that really does work with objective measures of behavior.

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