Lowe, R., Norman, P. and Sheeran, P. orcid.org/0000-0001-7449-4590 (2017) Milieu matters: Evidence that ongoing lifestyle activities influence health behaviors. PLoS One, 12 (6). e0179699.
Abstract
Health behaviors occur within a milieu of lifestyle activities that could conflict with health actions. We examined whether cognitions about, and performance of, other lifestyle activities augment the prediction of health behaviors, and whether these lifestyle factors are especially influential among individuals with low health behavior engagement. Participants (N = 211) completed measures of past behavior and cognitions relating to five health behaviors (e.g., smoking, getting drunk) and 23 lifestyle activities (e.g., reading, socializing), as well as personality variables. All behaviors were measured again at two weeks. Data were analyzed using neural network and cluster analyses. The neural network accurately predicted health behaviors at follow-up (R2 = .71). As hypothesized, lifestyle cognitions and activities independently predicted health behaviors over and above behavior-specific cognitions and previous behavior. Additionally, lifestyle activities and poor self-regulatory capability were more influential among people exhibiting unhealthy behaviors. Considering ongoing lifestyle activities can enhance prediction and understanding of health behaviors and offer new targets for health behavior interventions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Lowe et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Jul 2017 13:35 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:32 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179699 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0179699 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118974 |