Martin S. Hagger, Curtin University, Australia and University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Dominic Conroy, Birkbeck University of London, UK What is mental imagery? People are usually quite good at imagining things. For example, people often act out future actions or scenarios in their mind, or daydream about fanciful possibilities. These imagined situations are often unstructured […]
Peter M. Gollwitzer, New York University Everyone has bad habits. You snack when distressed or you drink too much alcohol when relaxing with friends. You create unnecessary stress by letting the social media distract you from completing pressing work projects, or by getting into unnecessary arguments with colleagues, friends, and family. How can you change […]
Dr Gjalt-Jorn Peters, Open University, Netherlands Fear appeals are a commonly used strategy to change behaviour. For instance the threatening and graphic fear-arousing communications now ever-present on tobacco packaging, and in campaigns to promote seatbelt use and discourage substance use. Despite the popularity and widespread use of these fear-arousing methods, research suggests that they may […]
Rik Crutzen, Maastricht University, The Netherlands Nowadays, people use the Internet all the time and for a wide range of activities: from buying groceries to showing a funny cat-picture to a friend on the other side of the world. It is all possible. Also, the Internet is used more and more within the domain of health […]
Dr Jean Adams, Centre for Diet & Activity Research, University of Cambridge Since October last year, by law, large retailers in England have been charging customers 5p (€0.06) for ‘single-use plastic carrier bags’ – those flimsy plastic bags you get from supermarkets to carry your groceries home. The money raised is donated by retailers to ‘good […]
By Benjamin Gardner, King’s College London What is a ‘habit’? Why do we eat popcorn while watching movies? The answer, for most, is that eating popcorn is a habitual response to watching movies. Psychologists define ‘habitual’ behaviours as actions that happen automatically, due to learned associations between situations (the movie theatre) and our responses to […]
