Unemployment, self-esteem, and depression: A social-comparison theory approach

A social comparison theory approach to the relation between unemployment, self-esteem, and depression was tested using a cross-sectional questionnaire design (N = 88). Personal attributes were used as the domain of comparison, and four types of comparisons - intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup - were operationalized. Employment status affected the salience of intrapersonal comparisons. Comparisons with the past self were highly predictive of psychological distress among unemployed respondents, whereas comparisons with the ideal self predicted distress among the employed. Individual-level and group-level social comparisons had different associations with the dependent measures for unemployed respondents. Intrapersonal and interpersonal comparisons were significantly related to depression and self-esteem scores, whereas intragroup and intergroup comparisons were related only to self-esteem. Social comparisons with unemployed people were related to reduced depression levels among employed respondents. Results also showed that unemployed people had more negative social comparison scores relative to their employed counterparts. Results are discussed in terms of recent developments in social comparison theory. Suggestions for future research are outlined

Milieu matters: Evidence that ongoing lifestyle activities influence health behaviors

Health behaviors occur within a milieu of lifestyle activities that could conflict with health actions. We examined whether cognitions about, and performance of, other lifestyle activities augment the prediction of health behaviors, and whether these lifestyle factors are especially influential among individuals with low health behavior engagement. Participants (N = 211) completed measures of past behavior and cognitions relating to five health behaviors (e.g., smoking, getting drunk) and 23 lifestyle activities (e.g., reading, socializing), as well as personality variables. All behaviors were measured again at two weeks. Data were analyzed using neural network and cluster analyses. The neural network accurately predicted health behaviors at follow-up (R2 = .71). As hypothesized, lifestyle cognitions and activities independently predicted health behaviors over and above behavior-specific cognitions and previous behavior. Additionally, lifestyle activities and poor self-regulatory capability were more influential among people exhibiting unhealthy behaviors. Considering ongoing lifestyle activities can enhance prediction and understanding of health behaviors and offer new targets for health behavior interventions

The goal dependent automaticity of drinking habits

In recent treatments of habitual social behaviour, habits are conceptualised as a form of goal-directed automatic behaviour that are mentally represented as goal-action links. Three experiments tested this conceptualisation in the context of students’ drinking (alcohol consumption) habits. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions where either a goal related to drinking behaviour (socialising) was activated, or an unrelated goal was activated. In addition, participants’ drinking habits were measured. The dependent variable in Experiments 1 and 2 was readiness to drink, operationalised by speed of responding to the action concept “drinking” in a verb verification task. Experiment 3 used uptake of a voucher to measure drinking behaviour. Findings supported the view that when habits are established, simply activating a goal related to the focal behaviour automatically elicits that behaviour. These findings are consistent with a goal-dependent conception of habit. Possibilities for interventions designed to attenuate undesirable habitual behaviours are considered

Development of theory-based health messages: three-phase programme of formative research

Online health behaviour interventions have great potential but their effectiveness may be hindered by a lack of formative and theoretical work. This paper describes the process of formative research to develop theoretically and empirically based health messages that are culturally relevant and can be used in an online intervention to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours among new university students. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, a three-phase programme of formative research was conducted with prospective and current undergraduate students to identify (i) modal salient beliefs (the most commonly held beliefs) about fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity, binge drinking and smoking, (ii) which beliefs predicted intentions/behaviour and (iii) reasons underlying each of the beliefs that could be targeted in health messages. Phase 1, conducted with 96 pre-university college students, elicited 56 beliefs about the behaviours. Phase 2, conducted with 3026 incoming university students, identified 32 of these beliefs that predicted intentions/behaviour. Phase 3, conducted with 627 current university students, elicited 102 reasons underlying the 32 beliefs to be used to construct health messages to bolster or challenge these beliefs. The three-phase programme of formative research provides researchers with an example of how to develop health messages with a strong theoretical- and empirical base for use in health behaviour change interventions

Should implementation intentions interventions be implemented in obesity prevention: the impact of if-then plans on daily physical activity in Dutch adults

Background Forming implementation intentions (specifying when, where and how to act) has been proposed as a potentially effective and inexpensive intervention, but has mainly been studied in controlled settings for straightforward behaviors. Purpose To examine if forming implementation intentions (II) could be used in large-scale, population-based interventions that aim to promote more complex and clinically relevant behavior change, we tested the impact of different II on increasing daily physical activity (PA) aimed at weight maintenance among 709 Dutch adults. Methods At T0, participants were randomly allocated to a control group or to form II for 1) a prescribed action (walking), 2) self-selected activities, 3) self-selected activities and repeat making these II two times. All participants were asked to increase PA by at least two hours a week (15–20 minutes per day). Post-tests took place two weeks (response 85%), three months (response 78%) and six months (response 79%) post-intervention. Results No main effects of II formation on BMI or physical activity were found. Intention to increase physical activity moderated the effects of repeated II, but not of the other II conditions. Forming repeated II had a positive effect on total PA and number of active days for respondents with strong intentions. Conclusion Implementation intention interventions may not yet be ready for implementation on its own for large-scale obesity prevention in the general public. Future research should test strategies for optimal II formation in both initiating and maintaining behavioral change

Effects of study design and allocation on self-reported alcohol consumption: randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: What participants think about the nature of a study might affect their behaviour and bias findings. We tested two hypotheses: (1) participants told they were in an intervention trial would report lower alcohol consumption at follow-up than those told they were in a cohort study; (2) participants told they were in the intervention group in a trial would have lower alcohol consumption at follow-up than those told they were in the control group. METHODS: Students from four universities (N = 72,903) were invited to participate in a 'research project on student drinking'. Of 10,415 respondents, 6,788 were moderate to heavy drinkers and were randomized. Group A ('cohort') were informed their drinking would be assessed at baseline and again in one month. Group B ('control') were told the study was an intervention trial and they were in the control group. Group C ('intervention') were told the study was an intervention trial and they were to receive the intervention. All were assessed and directed to read identical online alcohol education material. Whether and how long they accessed the material were recorded. One month later, alcohol intake was reassessed. RESULTS: In relation to hypothesis 1, there were no differences between the groups on the prespecified outcome measures. In relation to hypothesis 2, there were no differences though all point estimates were in the hypothesized direction (that is, 'intervention' < 'control'). The 'cohort' and 'control' groups accessed the material to a similar extent (59% versus 57%) while the 'intervention' group were more likely to access it (78%) and to read it for longer (median 35 s (25th and 75th percentiles: 6, 97) versus medians of 7 s (0, 28) and 8 s (4, 42) for the 'cohort' and 'control' groups, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Although the context given to the research participants significantly influenced access to the online information and reading time, this did not translate into any effect on drinking behaviour, for either hypothesis. This might be because of failure in the experimental paradigm or the possibility of weaker effects using the online approach. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12610000846022

'They've invited me into their world': a focus group with clinicians delivering a behaviour change intervention in a UK contraceptive service.

Although teenage conceptions rates in the United Kingdom (UK) have seen a downward trend recently, it remains imperative that contraceptive services for young people continue to improve. To ensure that evidence-based interventions are sustained in clinical practice, it is useful to assess the experiences of those delivering them. This study explores the experiences of sexual health clinicians who were trained to deliver a one-to-one behaviour change intervention aiming to improve contraceptive use in young women. The intervention was set in a UK NHS contraceptive and sexual health service and involved clinicians' facilitating (within one-to-one consultations) the formation of implementation intentions (or 'if-then' plans) that specified when, where and how young women would use contraception. A focus group was conducted with seven clinicians who had delivered the intervention. A thematic analysis of the focus group revealed three overall themes: (1) How the intervention worked in practice; (2) barriers and benefits to delivering the intervention; and (3) positive changes to individual consultation style and wider 'best practice' within the clinic. Our findings show that, with support, clinical staff would be in favour of incorporating if-then planning as a strategy to help promote contraceptive adherence in young women

Attitudes and preferences towards self-help treatments for depression in comparison to psychotherapy and antidepressant medication

Background: Self-help is an effective treatment for depression. Less is known, however, about how acceptable people find different self-help treatments for depression. Aims: To investigate preferences and attitudes toward different self-help treatments for depression in comparison to psychotherapy and antidepressants. Method:N = 536 people who were not actively seeking treatment for depression were randomly assigned to read about one of five treatment options (bibliotherapy, Internet-based self-help, guided self-help, antidepressants, or psychotherapy) before rating how acceptable they found the treatment. Participants also ranked the treatments in order of preference. Results: Psychotherapy and guided self-help were found to be the most acceptable and preferred treatment options. Antidepressants and bibliotherapy were found to be the least acceptable treatments, with antidepressants rated as the most likely to have side effects. Preference data reflected the above findings – psychotherapy and guided self-help were the most preferred treatment options. Conclusions: The findings highlight differences in attitudes and preferences between guided and unguided self-help interventions; and between self-help interventions and psychotherapy. Future research should focus on understanding why unguided self-help interventions are deemed to be less acceptable than guided self-help interventions for treating depression

Does self-control improve with practice? Evidence from a 6-week training program

Can self-control be improved through practice? Several studies have found that repeated practice of tasks involving self-control improves performance on other tasks relevant to self-control. However, in many of these studies, improvements after training could be attributable to methodological factors (e.g., passive control conditions). Moreover, the extent to which the effects of training transfer to real-life settings is not yet clear. In the present research, participants (N = 174) completed a 6-week training program of either cognitive or behavioral self-control tasks. We then tested the effects of practice on a range of measures of self-control, including lab-based and real-world tasks. Training was compared to both active and no-contact control conditions. Despite high levels of adherence to the training tasks, there was no effect of training on any measure of self-control. Trained participants did not, for example, show reduced ego depletion effects, become better at overcoming their habits, or report exerting more self-control in everyday life. Moderation analyses found no evidence that training was effective only among particular groups of participants. Bayesian analyses suggested that the data was more consistent with a null effect of training on self-control than with previous estimates of the effect of practice. The implication is that training self-control through repeated practice does not result in generalized improvements in self-control