TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a formal system for representing behaviour-change theories
AU - West, Robert
AU - Godinho, Cristina A.
AU - Bohlen, Lauren Connell
AU - Carey, Rachel N.
AU - Hastings, Janna
AU - Lefevre, Carmen E.
AU - Michie, Susan
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to the theory authors and experts who commented on the construct definitions and theory representations: I. Ajzen (TPB), J. Annesi (SCT), C. DiClemente (TTM), W. Fisher (IBM) and V. Strecher (HBM). We are grateful to K. Sheals for assistance with coding the theories and drafting the paper. We are also grateful to M. Johnston for early discussions about this piece of work and to M. Marques, A. Wright, C. Garnett, A. Direito, H. Groarke, H. Walton and T. Revenson who assisted with the drafting of the paper. This work was also supported by a grant from the UK Medical Research Council (grant number MR/L011115/1) and by a National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator’s award held by S.M. The contribution of R.W. contribution was partly funded by Cancer Research UK. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/5/1
Y1 - 2019/5/1
N2 - Use of natural language to represent behaviour-change theories has resulted in lack of clarity and consistency, hindering comparison, integration, development and use. This paper describes development of a formal system for representing behaviour-change theories that aims to improve clarity and consistency. A given theory is represented in terms of (1) its component constructs (for example, ‘self-efficacy’, ‘perceived threat’ or ‘subjective norm’), which are labelled and defined, and (2) relationships between pairs of constructs, which may be causal, structural or semantic. This formalism appears adequate to represent five commonly used theories (health belief model, information–motivation–behavioural skill model, social cognitive theory, theory of planned behaviour and the trans-theoretical model). Theory authors and experts judged that the system was able to capture the main propositions of the theories. Following this proof of concept, the next step is to assess how far the system can be applied to other theories of behaviour change.
AB - Use of natural language to represent behaviour-change theories has resulted in lack of clarity and consistency, hindering comparison, integration, development and use. This paper describes development of a formal system for representing behaviour-change theories that aims to improve clarity and consistency. A given theory is represented in terms of (1) its component constructs (for example, ‘self-efficacy’, ‘perceived threat’ or ‘subjective norm’), which are labelled and defined, and (2) relationships between pairs of constructs, which may be causal, structural or semantic. This formalism appears adequate to represent five commonly used theories (health belief model, information–motivation–behavioural skill model, social cognitive theory, theory of planned behaviour and the trans-theoretical model). Theory authors and experts judged that the system was able to capture the main propositions of the theories. Following this proof of concept, the next step is to assess how far the system can be applied to other theories of behaviour change.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064091053&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41562-019-0561-2
DO - 10.1038/s41562-019-0561-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 30962614
AN - SCOPUS:85064091053
SN - 2397-3374
VL - 3
SP - 526
EP - 536
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
IS - 5
ER -