Implementation Intentions: Strategic Automatization of Goal Striving

Several theories that have been used to understand the self-regulation of behavior in, consider the formation of a goal intention as the key act of willing in promoting goal attainment. Goal intentions can be defined as the instructions that people give themselves to perform particular behaviors or to achieve certain desired outcomes (Triandis, 1980) and characteristically are measured by items of the form "I intend to achieve Xl" Forming a goal intention serves to end deliberation about behaviors or outcomes and indicates the standard of performance that one has set oneself, one's commitment to the performance, and the amount of time and effort that will be expended during action Although key health behavior theories construe goal intentions as the most important predictor of behavior and goal achievement, at least 3 lines of research indicate that there is often a substantial "gap" between intention and action. First, correlational studies indicate that much of the variance in behavior is not explained by measures of goal intentions. For instance, Sheeran (2002) meta-analyzed 10 previous meta-analyses of correlational research and found that intentions accounted for only 28% of the variance in behavior, on average, across 422 studies. Second, Fife-Schaw, Sheeran and Norman (in press) used statistical simulations to estimate the impact of maximally effective TPB interventions on the likelihood of performing 30 behaviors. Findings indicated that even if participants all had the maximum possible attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control scores, and thus the highest possible intention scores that could be