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. 2021 Apr 9;23(4):e17127.
doi: 10.2196/17127.

Theory Integration for Lifestyle Behavior Change in the Digital Age: An Adaptive Decision-Making Framework

Chao Zhang  1 , Daniël Lakens  1 , Wijnand A IJsselsteijn  1
Affiliations

Theory Integration for Lifestyle Behavior Change in the Digital Age: An Adaptive Decision-Making Framework

Chao Zhang et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of digital health interventions, limitations of traditional behavior change theories and a lack of theory integration hinder theory-driven behavior change applications. In this paper, we aim to review theories relevant to lifestyle behavior change from the broader psychology literature and then integrate these theories into a new theoretical framework called adaptive decision-making to address two specific problems. First, our framework represents lifestyle behaviors at two levels-one of individual daily decisions (action level) and one of larger behavioral episodes (reflection level)-to more closely match the temporal characteristics of lifestyle behaviors and their associated digital data. Second, the framework connects decision-making theories and learning theories to explain how behaviors and cognitive constructs dynamically influence each other, making it a suitable scaffold for building computational models. We map common digital intervention techniques onto the behavioral and cognitive processes in the framework and discuss possible contributions of the framework to both theory development and digital intervention design.

Keywords: behavior change; decision-making; digital health intervention; habits; health behavior; learning; self-control; theoretical framework.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A two-level representation of lifestyle behavior (change).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Categorization of reviewed theories based on their theoretical traditions and temporal scales (theories that apply to both temporal scales are underlined).
Figure 3
Figure 3
A two-step model of daily lifestyle decision making.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Action-level learning processes added to the decision-making model.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A full representation of the adaptive decision-making framework (reflection-level processes and interactions between the 2 levels added to the previous decision-making model).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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