The Theory of Planned Behaviour which posits that beliefs and attitude valence and the approval of others determine intentions which in turn determine behaviour is good for explaining the fairly obvious. So we can explain why it is people intend to do what they do which is of course very useful. However, being able to construct knowledge which explains why people engage in 'maladaptive' behaviour that they do not intend to engage in and to understand fluctuating intentions and their relation to circumstance is more impressive. Time preference and self-regulation theory are relevant to both behavioural economics and health behaviour and combining key insights from both would be an excellent advance. This is exactly what Hall and Fong (2007) have done in their article entitled "Temporal self-regulation theory: A model for individual health behaviour".
Health Psychology Review is a new biannual journal as of this year and one to look out for. The other two articles in March's version are also worth a read: Health benefits: Meta-analytically determining the impact of well-being on objective health outcomes and Health and goal-directed behavior: The nonconscious regulation and motivation of goals and their pursuit.
1 comment:
Looks like an interesting paper.
Given that I just mentioned Becker and Murphy's (1988) "Theory of Rational Addiction" in a comment on the last post, the potential for comparison is jumping out on me.
The question of whether somebody is deriving utility from maladaptive behaviour is fascinating, be the behaviour present-orientated or not.
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