Interpersonal style should be included in taxonomies of behavior change techniques

Frontiers in Psychology

Martin S. Hagger¹ 

关键词: health psychology;    behavioral medicine;    behavior-change interventions;    autonomy support;    motivational interviewing;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00254

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Health practitioners and researchers in behavioral medicine recognize the value of interventions aimed at promoting uptake and maintenance of health behavior to prevent chronic illness. Although there have been advances in interventions that promote health behavior change and their effectiveness, gaps in knowledge exist. In particular, the precise components or techniques of behavioral interventions that lead to effective behavior change and the mechanisms involved have yet to be fully elucidated. Efforts to identify these techniques have been hindered by a lack of detail in, and systematic reporting of, the content and protocol of behavior-change interventions (Michie and Johnston, 2012). Recent efforts aimed at classifying behavior change techniques (BCTs) have been important in helping to identify the active ingredients of behavior-change interventions. This is important for the replication of interventions, identification of the mechanisms involved, and development of a “common language” for BCTs. Michie et al. (2013) present a hierarchically-clustered taxonomy to develop a BCT taxonomy based on consensus and serves as a starting point for the development of future taxonomies. In this article we contend that authors of BCT taxonomies have focused their attention exclusively on intervention content and should pay closer attention to the role interpersonal style plays in promoting behavior change. We use two approaches to behavior change that involve both content and interpersonal style to illustrate our point: autonomy support and motivational interviewing. We argue that interpersonal style is a unique set of techniques that likely interact with other content-related BCTs in affecting behavior change.

【 授权许可】

CC BY