Abstract
Background
Understanding the gap between people’s behavioral intentions and their subsequent behavior is a key problem for behavioral scientists, but little attention has been paid to how behavioral intentions are operationalized.
Purpose
Test the distinction between asking people what they intend to do, as opposed to what they expect they will do.
Methods
Two studies were conducted in the domains of alcohol consumption (N = 152) and weight loss (N = 141). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their behavioral intentions, expectations, and self-efficacy at baseline; alcohol consumption/weight were assessed at both baseline and follow-up.
Results
In study 1, expectations were more predictive of alcohol consumption than behavioral intentions, controlling for baseline alcohol consumption and self-efficacy. In study 2, changes in expectations were more predictive of weight loss than changes in behavioral intentions, controlling for baseline weight and self-efficacy.
Conclusion
The findings support a potentially important distinction between behavioral intentions and expectations.
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Notes
Note that some researchers also make a distinction between “self-efficacy” and “perceived control over behavior” [6, 7]. For example, using factor analysis and a panel of experts, Tavousi et al. [8] were able to distinguish internal influences on perceived control (e.g. confidence in one’s own ability or “self-efficacy”) and external influences on perceived control (e.g. environmental barriers) in relation to substance use among young adolescents, see also [6, 7, 9]. However, we were unable to support such a distinction in study 1, and so we focused on self-efficacy, given that self-efficacy is consistently more predictive of behavior than perceived control over behavior [6, 7].
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Authors’ Statement of Conflict of Interest and Adherence to Ethical Standards
Christopher J. Armitage, Mark Conner, Paul Norman and Soud Alganem declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures, including the informed consent process, were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.
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Armitage, C.J., Norman, P., Alganem, S. et al. Expectations Are More Predictive of Behavior than Behavioral Intentions: Evidence from Two Prospective Studies. ann. behav. med. 49, 239–246 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-014-9653-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-014-9653-4