OBJECTIVE:Container deposit schemes are often hailed as a useful avenue to increase consumer recycling rates. Yet, there is little research investigating within-person changes in people's beliefs and behavior following the implementation of these schemes, or tests of the mechanisms by which such change has occurred.METHODS:The current study fills this knowledge gap and assessed container recycling behavior and habits as well as the social cognition factors of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions in a sample of 90 Queenslanders before the implementation of the container deposit scheme and one and three months post-implementation.RESULTS:Analysis of variance indicated more frequent recycling behavior following the implementation of the scheme, as well as stronger habits, intentions, and perceived behavioral control.CONCLUSIONS:Such a concomitant change in behavior, beliefs, and habits provides support for behavior change theory, while also flagging potential targets for strategies that can be paired with container deposit schemes to enhance their efficacy and uptake.

Objective: There is continued debate regarding the most useful and meaningful way to measure habit and how to form habits via intervention. To date, lay representations of habit have rarely been explored. Such understandings may provide clarity on how researchers might better define habit, develop valid measurements of habit, and evaluate habit-based interventions. This study aimed to explore how lay people represent habit, across two studies. Methods: Study 1 (N = 158) used an online, open-ended questionnaire to elicit what lay people believe to be the salient features of habit. Study 2 involved a series of interviews and focus groups (N = 27), to explore individual representations of habit. Results: Theoretical thematic content analysis across the two studies revealed that participants described habit by what it is (i.e., an explicit outcome or internal mechanism), by habit’s features (i.e., automatic, frequent, stable cue/context, and emotionally rewarding), and by how they evaluated habits (i.e., being both “good” and “bad”). When describing the characteristics of habitual behaviours, participants identified that habits were either simple, discrete behaviours; clustered, repetitive behaviours synonymous with routine; or a self-identity characteristic. Conclusions: Current findings indicate that lay people hold consistent and contradictory representations of habit. Largely, lay representations were similar to scientific conceptualisations, with some notable difference. Participants appeared to misunderstand the cue-based mechanism of habits, interchangeably used ‘habit’ with ‘routine’, and believed that habits were emotionally rewarding. Future research should focus on integrating the beliefs identified in this research with new measures of habit and habit interventions.

There is a need for robust, empirically-validated conceptualisations of teachers' attitudes towards teaching science, with a view to understand how these might explain their intention to teach science. The Dimensions of Attitudes Toward Science (DAS) theoretical framework suggests that cognitive, affective and perceived control dimensions of teachers' professional attitudes may be related to their behavioural intention to teach science. While the DAS framework has been employed in numerous studies investigating the attitudes of preservice and inservice teachers, its efficacy remains mostly unknown. The current study employed a cross-sectional survey research design to investigate the question, to what extent does the DAS theoretical framework explain primary preservice teachers' intention to prioritise teaching science in their future practice? Early childhood and primary preservice teachers (n = 250) at an Australian university completed the DAS instrument prior to completing a science curriculum unit. Structural equation modelling revealed inadequate/poor model fit across multiple indices. Perceived relevance of science education and enjoyment teaching science were statistically significant predictors of preservice teachers' intention to prioritise teaching science, whereas other attitudinal constructs from the framework were not significant in this research. These findings warrant further attention to theories of behaviour and behaviour change in science education research.

Objective Habitual behaviours are triggered automatically, with little conscious forethought. Theory suggests that making healthy behaviours habitual, and breaking the habits that underpin many ingrained unhealthy behaviours, promotes long-term behaviour change. This has prompted interest in incorporating habit formation and disruption strategies into behaviour change interventions. Yet, notable research gaps limit understanding of how to harness habit to change real-world behaviours. Methods Discussions among health psychology researchers and practitioners, at the 2019 European Health Psychology Society 'Synergy Expert Meeting', generated pertinent questions to guide further research into habit and health behaviour. Results In line with the four topics discussed at the meeting, 21 questions were identified, concerning: how habit manifests in health behaviour (3 questions); how to form healthy habits (5 questions); how to break unhealthy habits (4 questions); and how to develop and evaluate habit-based behaviour change interventions (9 questions). Conclusions While our questions transcend research contexts, accumulating knowledge across studies of specific health behaviours, settings, and populations will build a broader understanding of habit change principles and how they may be embedded into interventions. We encourage researchers and practitioners to prioritise these questions, to further theory and evidence around how to create long-lasting health behaviour change.

We tested a dual process model incorporating constructs that reflect both performing the target behaviour (behaviour directed habit) and habits that run counter to the target behaviour (opposing behaviour habit) in accounting for variance in two health behaviours: eating the recommended serves of fruits and vegetables a day and restricting sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. A prospective correlational design with two waves of data collection separated by one week was adopted. Participants (N = 606) comprising middle school students (n = 266) and university students (n = 340) completed an initial survey comprising self-report measures of past behaviour, intention, and habit to perform the target behaviour and habits that run counter to the target behaviour. One week later, participants (N = 414) completed a self-reported measure of behaviour. Results revealed that behaviour directed habits predicted fruit and vegetable consumption in both samples, while opposing behaviour habits predicted restriction of sugar-sweetened beverages in the middle-school sample only, with a moderating effect also observed. Current findings indicate that habits specifying avoidance of the target behaviour did not predict future behaviour. However, the moderating effect observed provides preliminary evidence that strong habits to perform a behaviour may override habit to avoid the behaviour.

Objective: Past behavior has been consistently shown to predict and explain future behavior. It has been proposed that past behavior effects reflect both reasoned-action and automatic processes. The current study sought to explore the mediation of past behavior-future behavior relationship via constructs representing these processes across three populations and behaviors: binge drinking in university students, flossing in adults, and parental sun safety behavior of children 2 – 5 years of age. Furthermore, this study used a measure of past behavior that combined long-term, recent, and routine patterns of behavioral engagement. Methods. A prospective design with two waves of data collection spaced six weeks apart was adopted. Participants (Total N = 754) completed an initial survey containing measures of past behavior (frequency, recency, and routine), social cognition (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control), and behavioral automaticity. Six weeks later, participants (N = 454) completed a self-report measure of behavior and behavioral automaticity. Results. Structural equation modelling revealed that automatic, but not reasoned-action processes, mediated the past-to-future relationship, across the three behaviors. Results further revealed that long-term, recent, and routine patterns of behavioral engagement were highly correlated and indicated a second-order past behavior latent variable. Conclusions. While both reasoned-action and automatic factors can predict a range of health behaviors, automatic processes appear to explain the effect of past behavior on future behavior. Further investigations should focus on exploring the role of other non-conscious and automatic processes such as counter-intentional habits and implicit beliefs in explaining engagement in heath behaviors.

Objective: High sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and low fruit and vegetable intake are associated with a range of health issues. Both intentional and automatic processes have been found to play a significant role in health behaviour change; however, previous research has tended to focus on goal-directed habits, while other potentially important automatic factors (e.g., counter-intentional habit) have been largely ignored. The aim of the current study is to understand the role of both intentional and automatic processes (i.e., goal-directed and counter-intentional habits) in two health-promoting nutrition behaviours (i.e., eating the recommended serves of fruits and vegetables a day and restricting sugar-sweetened beverage consumption) across two age-cohorts (i.e., middle school students aged 11 – 14 years and university students aged 17 – 24 years). Methods: A prospective design with two waves of data collection spaced one week apart was adopted. Participants (Total N = 606) completed an initial survey comprising measures of past behaviour, intention, goal-directed habits, and counter-intentional habits. One week later, participants (n = 414) completed a self-reported measure of behaviour. Results: Structural equation modelling revealed that intentions significantly predicted both behaviours in both samples. Goal-directed habits predicted fruit and vegetable consumption in both samples, while counter-intentional habits only predicted the restriction of sugar-sweetened beverages in the middle-school sample. Conclusions: Current findings indicate that different types of automatic factors may play a role in explaining nutrition behaviours. Specifically, habits which were worded with an avoidance-orientation (i.e., the habit to not consume or avoid consuming) did not play a significant role in predicting future behaviour. Future research should explore the concept of avoidance-oriented habits including lay-beliefs and representations of them.

Fruit and vegetable intake is insufficient in industrialized nations and long-haul heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers are considered a particularly at-risk group. The aim of the current study was to test the effectiveness of a multi-theory, dual-phase model to predict fruit and vegetable consumption in Australian long-haul HGV drivers. A secondary aim was to examine the effect of past fruit and vegetable consumption on model paths. A prospective design with two waves of data collection spaced one week apart was adopted. Long-haul HGV drivers (N = 212) completed an initial survey containing theory-based measures of motivation (autonomous motivation, intention), social cognition (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control), and volition (action planning, coping planning) for fruit and vegetable consumption. One week later, participants (n = 84) completed a self-report measure of fruit and vegetable intake over the previous week. A structural equation model revealed that autonomous motivation predicted intentions, mediated through attitudes and perceived behavioural control. It further revealed that perceived behavioural control, action planning, and intentions predicted fruit and vegetable intake, whereby the intention-behaviour relationship was moderated by coping planning. Inclusion of past behaviour attenuated the effects of these variables. The model identified the relative contribution of motivation, social cognition, and volitional components in predicting fruit and vegetable intake of HGV drivers. Consistent with previous research, inclusion of past fruit and vegetable consumption led to an attenuation of model effects, particularly the intention-behaviour relationship. Further investigation is needed to determine which elements of past behaviour exert most influence on future action.