Using the question-behavior effect to change multiple health behaviors: An exploratory randomized controlled trial.

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Science
• Health Psychology
• Intervention Science

Background:

• The question-behavior effect (QBE) is a known phenomenon where asking about a behavior influences its subsequent performance.
• Previous research has primarily focused on single behaviors, leaving the potential for QBE to influence multiple behaviors under-explored.
• The role of psychological dissonance in amplifying the QBE also remains an under-researched area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the question-behavior effect (QBE) can be leveraged to modify multiple health behaviors simultaneously.
• To determine whether enhancing psychological dissonance during questionnaire completion amplifies the magnitude of the QBE.
• To compare the effectiveness of a dissonance-enhanced QBE intervention against a standard QBE and a control group.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial with 1534 participants was conducted.
• Participants were assigned to either a dissonance-enhanced QBE, standard QBE, or control condition.
• Interventions targeted six behaviors: three health-protective (fruit/vegetable intake, physical activity, dental flossing) and three health-risk (alcohol intake, sedentariness, unhealthy snacking). Behavior was assessed via self-report at four-week follow-up.

Main Results:

• The QBE demonstrated significant overall effectiveness in increasing health-protective behaviors (p=.001) and reducing health-risk behaviors (p=.04).
• The dissonance-enhanced QBE intervention led to greater increases in health-protective behaviors (p=.04) compared to the standard QBE.
• The dissonance-enhanced QBE intervention showed a marginal benefit in reducing health-risk behaviors (p=.07) and outperformed the control group in all analyses.

Conclusions:

• This study provides the first evidence that a brief question-behavior effect (QBE) intervention can influence the performance of multiple health behaviors.
• Enhancing psychological dissonance during the QBE process appears to increase its impact on health behavior change.
• The findings suggest that QBE interventions, particularly those incorporating dissonance enhancement, hold promise for public health strategies targeting multiple behaviors.