When Time Is Not Available: Rethinking Behaviour Change in Prevention

Behaviour change theories have substantially advanced understanding of the mechanisms through which behaviours are initiated, maintained, and sustained. However, less attention has been directed towards the temporal conditions under which these mechanisms are able to operate consistently in everyday life. This conceptual paper explores whether differences in temporal conditions may contribute to the variability frequently observed in behaviour change interventions. The paper proposes a complementary framework centred on the concepts of tempo, interval, and behavioural consolidation. Rather than introducing an alternative behaviour change theory, the framework considers how environments differ in the temporal conditions they create for behavioural processes to unfold. It suggests that these conditions may influence the extent to which existing behaviour change mechanisms are able to operate effectively over time. The framework is illustrated through conceptual applications to food environments, learning environments, sleep, and clinical prevention, demonstrating how temporal conditions may provide an additional perspective across behavioural, cognitive, physiological, and professional domains. By making temporal conditions explicit, this perspective complements existing behaviour change models and generates new questions for prevention research and practice. Rather than asking only how behaviour changes, it encourages consideration of whether the temporal conditions required for behavioural consolidation are present in the first place.