How do people manage desirable but disruptive competing behaviors to successfully reach their health goals? A dual-phase dual-process (DP2) model

OBJECTIVE: Health behaviour change can be facilitated by the use of self-directed situational strategies that assist with the management of alternative behaviours that potentially compete with, and disrupt, health goal-directed behaviour performance. The strategies are likely especially efficacious for highly-rewarding alternative behaviours instigated by strongly-associated cues. However, theoretical accounts describing the determinants of self-directed strategy use and the implicated mechanisms remain underdeveloped in scholarly literature. METHODS: The proposed DP2 model adopts a dual-phase, dual-process perspective and offers a comprehensive account of how individuals deploy self-directed strategies to promote goal-directed health behaviour performance through management of alternative competing behaviours. Drawing from nascent conceptual work on strategy use and extant behavioural theory, the model outlines the determinants and processes implicated in formation of health goal intention and self-directed situational strategy use intention; the application of self-regulatory procedures for strategy identification, selection, and implementation; and the effects of strategy use on goal intention enactment. Goal importance and resource availability are candidate moderators of these processes. Illustrative applications, salient caveats, and boundary conditions are outlined. CONCLUSION: The model advances knowledge on the processes governing self-directed situational strategy use for health behaviour change and is expected to guide research testing its predictions and inform intervention design.