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

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

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.

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Notes

  1. 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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Acknowledgements

Preparation of this paper was supported in part by a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute (Wendy Wood) and by grants RES-060-25-0044 and RES-000-22-3381 (Paschal Sheeran).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Alexander J. Rothman Ph.D.

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK

    Paschal Sheeran Ph.D.

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Wendy Wood Ph.D.

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  3. Wendy Wood Ph.D.
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Rothman, A.J., Sheeran, P. & Wood, W. Reflective and Automatic Processes in the Initiation and Maintenance of Dietary Change. ann. behav. med. 38 (Suppl 1), 4–17 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-009-9118-3

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