Promoting healthy eating by enhancing the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions

Background: Healthy eating campaigns are not always successful in changing food-related attitudes. Even when interventions produce the desired outcomes in attitudes, it is often challenging to translate those psychological changes into subsequent behaviors. Previous research has shown that elaborati...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Requero Bravo, Blanca, Briñol Turnes, Pablo Antonio, Moreno Díez, Lorena María, Paredes Sansinenea, Borja, Gandarillas Gutiérrez, Beatriz
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/692696
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/692696
https://dx.doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2019.154
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Healthy eating
Elaboration
Attitudes
Behavioral intentions
Persuasion
Psicología
Descripción
Sumario:Background: Healthy eating campaigns are not always successful in changing food-related attitudes. Even when interventions produce the desired outcomes in attitudes, it is often challenging to translate those psychological changes into subsequent behaviors. Previous research has shown that elaboration (amount of thinking) is a critical construct for understanding the ability of attitudes to guide behavior. Instead of looking directly at objective elaboration, this study examined attitudebehavior correspondence as a function of subjective elaboration. Method: Participants were fi rst randomly assigned to generate positive or negative arguments with regard to taxing junk food. After this experimental manipulation, participants reported their subjective elaboration (as an additional predictor), and their attitudes and behavioral intentions regarding the proposal (as dependent measures). Results: As hypothesized, the results showed that the greater perceived elaboration, the larger the ability of attitudes to guide behavioral intentions. That is, attitudes were more predictive of behavioral intentions in participants with higher levels of perceived elaboration compared to those with relatively lower levels of subjective thinking. Conclusion: Health initiatives can benefi t from considering the extent to which participants perceive thinking about persuasive proposals