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Specificity of Prediction Requests: Evidence for the Differential Effects of Self‐Prophecy on Commitment to a Health Assessment
Author(s) -
Sprott David E.,
Smith Ronn J.,
Spangenberg Eric R.,
Freson Timothy S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02002.x
Subject(s) - psychology , self fulfilling prophecy , social psychology , affect (linguistics) , test (biology) , differential effects , self assessment , medicine , paleontology , communication , biology
Modification of behavior is an important goal for organizations desiring to improve the healthfulness of a society. Unfortunately, many strategies used to affect health‐related behaviors (e.g., health beliefs model) are relatively complex and sometimes difficult to apply. A strategy potentially more useful for achieving such behavior change is self‐prophecy a simple technique requiring people to predict their future behavior, which in turn yields an increased probability of performing the behavior in a socially desirable manner. In the current research, we test the capacity of self‐prophecy to influence people's commitment to a health and fitness assessment. In addition, we explore an under‐researched issue regarding the application of self‐prophecy; namely, does specificity of the prediction request impact the effectiveness of self‐prophecy?