Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes

“Although accumulated research supports this idea (e.g., Armitage & Conner, 2001; Sheeran, 2002; Sutton, 1998), there is also contrary evidence that gives credence to the proverb that ‘‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’’ (Orbell & Sheeran, 1998; Sheeran, 2002).”

“…of performance, partly because behavior might be elicited almost “automatically” when the relevant situational cues are encountered; people do not forget their intentions easily when specified in a when, where, and how manner (for an overview and meta-analysis, see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“Meta-analyses have suggested that these theories can explain up to 25 per cent of variance in outcomes, in prospective studies of behaviour change (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006; Webb and Sheeran, 2006).”

“An impressive number of studies have provided convincing evidence that intended behavior does not necessarily translate into actual behavior (Gollwitzer, 1990; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Heckhausen & Gollwitzer, 1987).”

“…social modeling of overcoming obstacles, using stories or testimonials from other users (which also increases relatedness), implementation planning [67], and providing tailored feedback based on self-reported progress towards goals (congratulating success in goal achievement and providing remedial…”

“Implementation intentions positively mediate the relationship between intentions and behaviour because these simple plans help individuals to get started in realising their intentions, shield their intentions from unwanted influences and avoid conflict (Dholakia et al., 2007; Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).”

“One encourages people to form realistic, concrete plans for how to implement their new health-related goals in specific situations (Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006).”

“A recent meta-analysis showed that implementation intentions had a medium to large effect on promoting initiation of an intended behaviour (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“one-off, pre-planned and highly specific cue-responses [46]), or ideomotor or primed behaviours [47,48].”

“Perhaps most relevant to the functional theory of counterfactual thinking is recent research on implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“This planning conceptually aligns with the notions of implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006), and implementation plans (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Gopinath, 2007).”

“Research has demonstrated that implementation intentions are a powerful volitional strategy that increases the likelihood that a target will perform a behavior (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“In addition, metaanalyses included aspects of the HAPA (e.g., planning: Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; self-efficacy, outcome expectancies and risk perception: Milne, Sheeran, & Orbell, 2000; behavior change techniques: Michie, Abraham, Whittington, McAteer, & Gupta, 2009; stages, self-efficacy,…”

“Research has documented the success of implementation intentions in promoting self-control in numerous domains, including procrastination on academic assignments, health screening, and health promoting behaviors (see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006, for review).”

“…Gollwitzer and colleagues have shown that working with the if–then structure of the mind through the formation of situationally cued “subplan implementation intentions” can help individuals achieve better selfregulation and greater success in achieving long-term ends (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“This research indicates the existence of automatized forms of self-regulation such as an automatic link between a tempting stimulus and an overriding restraint goal (Fishbach et al, 2003 ) or an automatic link between critical situational cues and concrete goal-directed responses (implementation intentions; eg, Achtzi…”

“Although they are successful at behavior change in general (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006), little is known about how well they control strong habits.”

“…a link between situation and goal-oriented response (e.g. “If situation X is encountered, then I will perform response Y”), and therefore make explicit the link between a highly specific outcome after exposure to a highly specific cue or set of cues (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“A more time-efficient way of weakening attentional bias has recently been explored in research on implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“…processes such as goal setting and responding to discrepancies have been the subject of meta-analytic reviews (e.g., De Ridder et al., 2012; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Hagger et al., 2010; Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981; McEachan et al., 2011; Ouellette & Wood, 1998; Sheeran, 2002;…”

“Further, the ability to form and implement intentions [72, 73] is a key component of executive control, and those people low in this ability spontaneously produce poorer implementation intentions than those higher in such ability [74, study 1].”

“Furthermore, various studies have shown that conscious planning can lead to more successful goal achievement when such plans establish links between representations of relevant actions and cues (Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006).”

“To analyse how changes of habitual behaviour patterns can be facilitated, a distinction between a motivational phase and a volitional phase has been proposed (Heckhausen, 1991; Schwarzer, 1992).”

“These associations are then strong enough to instigate automatic action control when the specified situation is encountered (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“This is known as the ‘Implementation Intentions’ approach and it has shown good results in improving problematic health-related behaviour such as dieting, exercise and smoking cessation on a small scale [44].”

“The starting point for the analysis is that forming a strong intention is only a preliminary stage of successful goal attainment, because a host of subsequent implementation issues remain to be resolved (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).”

“…accumulated evidence has indicated that when goal-intentions are furnished with specific action plans, labeled implementation intentions, the self-regulatory problems such as the ones described above hinder goal-striving to a much lesser extent (for an overview see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“A recent meta-analysis of more than 100 studies confirmed that individuals who supplemented their goals with implementation intentions had markedly higher rates of success across diverse goal domains (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“Meta-analyses have summarized the findings on the effects of implementation intentions on health behaviors (for an overview, see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“In a subsequent and more extensive review by Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) an overall pooled effect size of 0.59, 95% CI [0.52, 0.67] was reported for health-related behaviours.”

“Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) assumed that the ability to engage in mental simulation (planning) might be one such factor.”

“The analysis is based on one of the most established theoretical frameworks in the analysis of intention (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006), the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985).”

“Behavioral consequences in the form of higher displaced aggression (toward a new target who provoked the person again) were shown by Bushman et al. (2005) to result from ruminatingabouttherecentprovocation,asop-posed to distraction or positive mood induction.”

“…control refers to a strategy where the ongoing behavior is continuously evaluated with regard to a behavioral standard (Schwarzer 2008), and action planning represents thoughts about how to set up the behavior by specifying the when, where, and how of the behavior (Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006).”

“This is not difficult when the actions are well practiced, but new behaviours may need to be more carefully planned (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).”

“Implementation intentions (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) are specific plans about when and how one will carry out an action.”

“The upshot of these strong links is that the initiation of the goal-directed response specified in the if–then plan becomes automated (for a review, see [36]).”

“Action planning can be promoted by prompting the formation of an ‘‘if-then’’ plan in which the individual identifies an event or critical situation salient for them and link it with a physical activity initiation behavior (12,22).”

“…by inclusion of incentives for behaving or remaining in the program (e.g., Mowen, Middlemist, & Luther, 1981; Bamberg, 2002) and by forming if-then plans that specify when, where, and how to act on positive intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999; Milne, Orbell, & Sheeran, 2002; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“…effects of ICT on behaviour were comparable to those produced by other, more well-established psychological interventions including implementation intentions (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006), avoidance training (Wiers et al., 2011) and a brief intervention for problem drinking (Kypri et al., 2009).”

“A recent meta-analysis by Gollwitzer & Sheeran [31] demonstrated the efficacy of implementation intention interventions in promoting goal attainment, with medium-to-large effect sizes reported across a variety of behavioural domains.”

“Empirical data collected in experimental lab and field studies support the assumption that implementation intentions help close the gap between wanting to attain a goal and actually attaining it (review by Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006).”

“A meta-analysis (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) showed a medium to strong effect size for the relationship between specific goal intentions and actually performing the behavior.”

“More-over, implementation intentions lead to ‘ instant habits ’ and are equally well-suited to break bad habits, like unhealthy snacking habits (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Kroese, Adriaanse, Evers, & De Ridder, 2011).”

“Various strategies have been proposed to narrow the gap, including action planning and self-regulation (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Hagger & Luszczynska, 2014; Mullan et al., 2011; Sniehotta, 2009b; Sniehotta et al., 2005).”

“Implementation intentions (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006), or if–then plans, identify cues in advance to act on an intention (e.g., After lunch, I’ll eat an apple).”

“When the cue is then encountered, the planned response can be implemented reflexively without any further planning or deliberation (Brandstätter, Lengfelder, & Gollwitzer, 2001; Webb & Sheeran, 2007; for a meta-analysis, see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“Such if-then implementation intentions have been shown to create mental associations that are automatically enacted and psychologically costly to break (P. M. Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Rogers, Milkman, John, & Norton, 2015).”

“People do not forget their intentions easily when specified in a when, where, and how manner (for an overview and meta-analysis, see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006 ).”

“…individuals to make a plan increases the frequency of other prompted health behaviors, including tetanus shots (Leventhal et al. 1965), cancer screening (Sheeran & Orbell 2000), healthy eating (Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006), colonoscopy (Milkman et al. 2013), and mammography (Rutter et al. 2006).”

“…have found that making such if– then plans to accomplish things on particular occasions led to much better performance than controls—even controls who had the same general goals and values but did not articulate implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999, 2014; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).”

“Goal attainment is higher when goal intentions are′′ ′′′a a made concrete by thinking of how, when, and where one will enact one’s goal intentions, as with implementation intentions (Gollwitzer 1999; Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006).”

“The mental contrasting with implementation intentions method for encouraging behavior change was based the work of Gollwitzer and colleagues (e.g., Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) and has been effective for changing behavior in other contexts (e.g., Stadler, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2009; Stadler,…”

“…intentions’ (Prestwich, Ayres, & Lawton, 2008), ‘shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings’ (Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008), ‘shielding goals from unwanted responses’ (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) or descriptively ‘planning how to overcome behaviour change barriers’.”