The Question-Behaviour Effect: A Theoretical and Methodological Review and Meta-Analysis

Research has demonstrated that asking people questions about a behaviour can lead to behaviour change. Despite many, varied studies in different domains, it is only recently that this phenomenon has been studied under the umbrella term of the question-behaviour effect (QBE) and moderators of the effect have been investigated. With a particular focus on our own contributions, this article: (1) provides an overview of QBE research; (2) reviews and offers new evidence concerning three theoretical accounts of the QBE (behavioural simulation and processing fluency; attitude accessibility; cognitive dissonance); (3) reports a new meta-analysis of QBE studies (k = 66, reporting 94 tests) focusing on methodological moderators. The findings of this meta-analysis support a small significant effect of the QBE (g = 0.14, 95% CI =0.11, 0.18, p < .001) with smaller effect sizes observed in more carefully controlled studies that exhibit less risk of bias; (4) also considers directions for future research on the QBE, especially studies that use designs with low risk of bias and consider desirable and undesirable behaviour separately.