Cited by 1,411Behavioral Health and InterventionsHealth Policy Implementation SciencePublic Health Policies and Education

The DOI matches its Crossref record, with a small difference in title or year; 87 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 40 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Theories of behaviour and behaviour change across the social and behavioural sciences: a scoping review

Open access

Abstract

Interventions to change health-related behaviours typically have modest effects and may be more effective if grounded in appropriate theory. Most theories applied to public health interventions tend to emphasise individual capabilities and motivation, with limited reference to context and social factors. Intervention effectiveness may be increased by drawing on a wider range of theories incorporating social, cultural and economic factors that influence behaviour. The primary aim of this paper is to identify theories of behaviour and behaviour change of potential relevance to public health interventions across four scientific disciplines: psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics. We report in detail the methodology of our scoping review used to identify these theories including which involved a systematic search of electronic databases, consultation with a multidisciplinary advisory group, web searching, searching of reference lists and hand searching of key behavioural science journals. Of secondary interest we developed a list of agreed criteria for judging the quality of the theories. We identified 82 theories and 9 criteria for assessing theory quality. The potential relevance of this wide-ranging number of theories to public health interventions and the ease and usefulness of evaluating the theories in terms of the quality criteria are however yet to be determined.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/17437199.2014.941722

Cites

87 of 87 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

26 Own result · 21 Not checked yet · 18 Own interpretation · 13 No basis given · 10 Own method

Verify all 40 references — free account

Show all 36 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 35
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 26
52 of 52
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The four disciplines psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics are the relevant disciplines for identifying theories of potential value to public health behaviour change.

    “across four scientific disciplines: psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics”
    “informed by the disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The 24-member UK expert advisory group is sufficiently representative of the social and behavioural sciences and population health to determine the review's scope, methods, definitions and quality criteria.

    “Twenty-four UK experts from the social and behavioural sciences and/or population health research formed the advisory group, which determined the scope, methods and conduct of the review.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The search strategy and sources were comprehensive enough to identify all relevant theories meeting the review's inclusion criteria.

    “To be as comprehensive as possible we focused on both theories of behaviour and behaviour change.”
    “Forward and backward citation searching, and hand searching of key behavioural science journals were performed to minimise the likelihood of relevant theories being missed.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The number of articles reporting a theory is a valid indicator of the theory's empirical application.

    “These are listed in Table 1 along with the lead author, date of the paper that originally described the theory and the number of articles that reported using the theory.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Nine defining features are conceptually important for a good theory.

    “Nine defining features were identified as conceptually important for a good theory: (i) clarity of constructs – ‘Has the case been made for the independence of constructs from each other?’”
5 of 5

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Show all 88 references

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. House of Lords, 2011, Behaviour change. Science and technology select committee, 2nd Report of Session 2010
  2. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2007, Behaviour change at population, community and individual levels [NICE public health guidance 6]
  3. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2010, Health systems and health-related behaviour change – A review of primary and secondary evidence
  4. Roe L., 1997, Health promotion interventions to promote healthy eating in the general population: A review
  5. Steinijans V. W., 1997, International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 35, 93
  6. Stephenson J. M., 2000, AIDS, 14, S115

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Metadata

Authors
Davis, R., Campbell, R., Hildon, Z., Hobbs, L., & Michie, S.
Affiliations
  • University College London (GB)
  • University of Bristol (GB)
Corresponding author
Michie, Susan
Venue
Health Psychology Review
Published
2014-08-08
Volume
9
Issue
3
Pages
323-344
ISSN
  • 1743-7199 (ISSN-L)
  • 1743-7202
OpenAlex
W2132253094
Cited by
1,411
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 99 · 2025: 152 · 2024: 174 · 2023: 150 · 2022: 160 · 2021: 184 · 2020: 202 · 2019: 104 · 2018: 90 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 2
FWCI
3.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Health Psychology Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Medical Research Council (PHSRN10)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Public Health Policies and Education
Keywords
behavior change, public health interventions, intervention effectiveness, cultural factors, economic factors
MeSH terms
Behavior Therapy, Humans, Motivation, Psychological Theory, Public Health, Health Behavior, Behavior Control

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