Health goal priming: how to benefit from nonconscious motivational routes to health behaviour

Abstract

Recent research has shown the limited effects of intentions on behavior, so that novel methods to facilitate behavior change are needed that do not rely on conscious intentions. In this talk, I will argue that nonintentional effects on health behavior, such as the effects of habits, impulses, and nonconscious goals, occur through the activation of cognitive structures by environmental cues. Interventions can therefore focus on changing these cognitive structures (training interventions, such as conditioning, attentional bias modification, response inhibition, etc.), or on changing which cognitive structures get activated (cueing interventions, such as priming, nudging, etc.). I will then introduce goal priming as a cueing intervention tool to activate health goals and thus facilitate healthier behavior, even in tempting environments that typically activate short-term hedonic goals. After a review of empirical evidence, mainly from the domain of eating behavior, five principles for the effective application of health goal primes will be proposed, namely 1) to target individuals who value the primed goals, 2) by activating their long-term motivation 3) through cues that effectively tap into that motivation and which 4) attract attention at the right time. Finally, 5) an effective goal-directed behavior needs to be known and accessible to the primed individual. I will briefly illustrate these principles in order to facilitate their application for successful behavior change.