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Annals of Behavioral Medicine

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01-12-2009 | Original Article

Reflective and Automatic Processes in the Initiation and Maintenance of Dietary Change

Authors: Alexander J. Rothman, Ph.D., Paschal Sheeran, Ph.D., Wendy Wood, Ph.D.

Published in: Annals of Behavioral Medicine | Special Issue 1/2009

Abstract

Purpose and Methods

This paper examines the social cognitive processes that regulate people's eating behavior. Specifically, we examine how eating behavior can be regulated by reflective, deliberative processes as well as automatic and habitual processes. Moreover, we consider how these processes operate when people are not only initiating a change in behavior but also maintaining the behavior over time.

Results and Discussion

Decomposing action control and behavior change into a 2 (reflective, automatic) × 2 (initiation, maintenance) matrix offers a useful way of conceptualizing the various determinants of eating behavior and suggests that different intervention strategies will be needed to target particular processes during respective phases of behavior change. The matrix also helps to identify key areas of intervention development that deserve attention.

Although this paper focuses on the social cognitive processes that guide dietary behavior, it should be recognized that these processes operate within and, in some cases, are affected by the physiological and sociological systems that also affect people's dietary behavior (see papers in this issue, [55, 110, 122]).

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Title: Reflective and Automatic Processes in the Initiation and Maintenance of Dietary Change
Authors: Alexander J. Rothman, Ph.D.
Paschal Sheeran, Ph.D.
Wendy Wood, Ph.D.
Publication date: 01-12-2009
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: Annals of Behavioral Medicine / Issue Special Issue 1/2009
Print ISSN: 0883-6612
Electronic ISSN: 1532-4796
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-009-9118-3

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on sleep in brain health

Springer Medicine

Reflective and Automatic Processes in the Initiation and Maintenance of Dietary Change

Abstract

Purpose and Methods

Results and Discussion

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on sleep in brain health

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Purpose and Methods

Results and Discussion

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Appetite is a Heritable Phenotype Associated with Adiposity

Decision Making in Eating Behavior: Interacting Perspectives from the Individual, Family, and Environment: An Introduction

Contributions of the Life Course Perspective to Research on Food Decision Making