Journey 1 · Non-Consciousness
Changing Intentions Changes Behavior, but Much Less
Across 47 experiments, a medium-to-large change in what people intended led to only a small-to-medium change in what they later did.
Psychologists Thomas Webb and Paschal Sheeran pooled 47 experiments in which people were randomly assigned to something that changed their intention to act, and their later behavior was then measured. A medium-to-large change in intention led to only a small-to-medium change in behavior.
Intentions still matter: changing them did change behavior, only by much less, and the gap was larger for behaviors done often in the same setting, the kind that can become habits. Habit research explains part of why. A habit runs on cues in your setting, and it can keep running on them even after your intentions change.
Journey 1, Non-Consciousness, calls a repeating pattern “a wiring problem, not a knowledge problem.” These findings are the research form of that idea. So the journey works on cues and settings rather than willpower, and it begins by catching the cue. Which cue sets off a routine you have already decided to change?
The research
Strong evidence Replicated findings and meta-analyses.
- Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 249–268.
- Wood, W., & Rünger, D. (2016). Psychology of habit. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 289–314.
- Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. A. (2002). Habits in everyday life: Thought, emotion, and action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1281–1297.
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