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Threatening communication is a widely applied method in behavior change interventions, which at the same time has been heavily criticized in the psychological literature. The current paper describes a study of the reasons for this persistent wide application of threatening communication. We conducted qualitative interviews with 33 key actors in behavior change intervention development in The Netherlands. Specifically, we interviewed intervention developers, policymakers, politicians, scientists, and advertising professionals. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently coded using NVivo. We found that participants most closely involved with the actual intervention development were generally convinced that threatening information was to be prevented, but often did not understand the exact processes involved. They were often under the impression that rather than a potent efficacy enhancing element, a behavioral suggestion would suffice to prevent threatening communication from backfiring. As participants were further removed from the actual intervention development, they generally tended to be more in favor of threatening communication. The main reasons for use of threatening information were to attract attention or prompt self-reflection through confrontation, because target population members were assumed to like threatening information and respond rationally to increased risk perceptions by changing their behavior, or simply because no alternatives were available. In addition, intervention developers frequently had to deal with supervisors or funders who preferred threatening communication. Thus, when communicating with practitioners, it seems fruitful to provide them with a toolbox of evidence-based behavior change methods that promote adaptive, rather than maladaptive, behavior; to promote basing interventions on the most relevant behavioral determinants as identified by determinant analyses; and to equip intervention developers with the tools to persuade other key stakeholders that fear is a bad ...

Research on goal attainment has demonstrated that people are more likely to reach their goals when they form implementation intentions. Three experiments tested whether implementation intentions lead to tenacious goal striving following blockage of an initial attempt to reach the goal. In all three experiments some participants were instructed to form an implementation intention and other participants were not. Subsequently, the initial goal-directed attempt of all participants was unexpectedly blocked. Experiment 1 found that implementation intentions resulted in more attempts to realize one's goal. Experiment 2 showed that when participants formed an implementation intention their repeated attempt was acted out as intensely as their first, blocked attempt. Experiment 3 found that implementation intentions still allow people to seize an alternative, more onerous means to realize their intention. These results imply that implementation intention conserve self-regulatory strength. After goal blockage, the remaining strength can be used to continue goal-directed action.