Behaviour change - Evidence Table

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J
1	Intervention		Our overall view	Effect Size		Evidence				Cost-effectiveness
2	Intervention		Our overall view	Cohen's d		Top study	No. of participants	Consistency of findings	Notes	Our rough judgement

3	Implementation intentions	Planning when/ where/ how you will implement a goal (and how you will overcome foreseeable obstacles)	Very worthwhile. A strong effect and easy to implement	Medium	0.62	Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006)	8,461	Low. Range in effect size from 0.25 to 0.92	Three meta-analysis reviewed: - Bélanger-Gravel et al. (2013) [19 studies]: 0.24 cohen's d - Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) [94 studies]: 0.65 cohen's d - Toli et al. (2015) [28 studies]: 0.92 cohen's d	High. Setting implementation intentions requires a small, one-off time investment, no monetary cost, and only a small to moderate amount of motivation.
4	Prompts/ cues	Deciding on (and practicing) behavioural or environmental prompts/ cues to which you can tie the new behaviour	Very worthwhile. One of the larger sizes of effect we found. This is also a relatively straightforward intervention to understand and implement	Small	0.48	Olander et al. (2013)	7,614	-	1 systematic review assessed: Olander et al. (2013)	High. Simple enough to do and with a relatively high size of effect
5	Goal intentions	Setting a clear target for what you want to achieve	Worthwhile. Given the ease of setting a specific goal and how this helps inform other useful strategies (e.g. implementation intentions; action planning; etc.)	Small	0.45	Webb and Sheeran (2006)	8,802	Moderate. range in effect size from 0.36 to 0.55	Three meta-analyses reviewed: - Webb and Sheeran (2006) [47 studies]; d=0.36 - Sheeran and Orbell (1998) [28 studies]; d=0.44 - McEwan et al. (2016) [45 studies]; d=0.55	High. Setting a goal requires a one-off, small time investment, no monetary cost, and minimal motivation.
6	Incentives	Committing a sum of money to the success/ failure of behaviour change	Worthwhile if affordable. Incentives have a moderate effect are simple to implement but are costly and effects are not maintained once the incentive is removed	Small	0.41	Mantzari et al. (2015)	10,585	Very high. Both meta-analysis reviewed reported the same effect size (0.41)	Two meta-analysis reviewed: - Mantzari et al. (2015) [34 studies]: d=0.41 - Olander et al. (2013) [33 studies]: d=0.41	Low. While incentives appear quite effective, they are far more costly than most of the other interventions proposed here
7	Self-monitoring	Frequent (e.g. daily) tracking of whether you are implementing the behaviour change	Worthwhile. Habit tracking apps (e.g. Habit Tracker) make self-monitoring free and easy to do	Small	0.4	Harkin et al. (2016)	19,951	Very high. Range in effect size from 0.4 to 0.41	Six meta-analysis reviewed, of which two presented effect sizes: - Harkin et al. (2016) [138 studies]: d=0.4 - Michie et al. (2009) [46 studies]: d=0.41 The other four meta-analyses can be found on the 'Data' sheet	Moderate to high. Daily tracking requires a consistent but small time commitment. Some tracking apps require subscriptions but good, free options appear to be available.
8	Attitude change	Changing how you think about your ability to change habits	Somewhat worthwhile. Value likely dependent on how easy it is to find resources that produce a significant shift in your attitude	Small	0.37	Sheeran et al. (2016)	31,328	-	1 meta-analysis reviewed: Sheeran et al. (2016)	Moderate. We expect that attitude change is likely more difficult to achieve as a self-help intervention that many of the others listed that produced similar effect sizes
9	Coping planning (relapse prevention)	Planning how to avoid/ manage situations where there is a high risk of failing to maintain behaviour change	See 'Implementation Intentions' (similarly to 'barrier identification', coping planning appears to form part of implementation intention which showed the largest effect size)	Small	0.37	Webb et al. (2010)	-	-	1 systematic review assessed: Webb et al. (2010)	Moderate to high. Appears effective and relatively easy to do in advance of tricky situations. Perhaps best considered as part of the 'implementation intention' framing
10	Barrier identification	Think about personal obstacles and how you would overcome them	See 'Implementation Intentions' (the two strategies are very similar but the specific 'if-then' framing of implementation intentions possibly improves its effectiveness)	Small	0.27	Olander et al. (2013)	7,614	Moderate. Range in effect size from 0.2 to 0.33	2 meta-analyses reviewed - Olander et al. (2013) - Webb et al. (2010)	High. Planning how to overcome likely obstacles appears particularly effective and is relatively easy (see 'Implementation intentions')
11	Social accountability	Having other people check on your progress (e.g. by a public post or an accountability programme)	Probably worthwhile. A reasonable effect size and likely to be particularly beneficial for people who place high weights on the opinions of others (or specifically of the individuals monitoring your progress)	Small	0.23	Hunter et al. (2019)	53,891	Moderate. Range in effect size from 0.18 to 0.3	6 meta-analyses/ systematic reviews assessed, of which 3 presented effect sizes: - Hunter et al. (2019); Olander et al. (2013); Webb et al. (2010)	Moderate. Social accountability requires a small but ongoing time commitment and possibly some level of social capital (asking a friend for an ongoing favour).
12	Action planning	Making a detailed plan of how you will achieve your goal	Somewhat worthwhile. Easy enough to do and likely to improve the chance of forming a habit but should be considered additional to forming implementation intentions given the similarity and difference in effect sizes	Small	0.22	Williams et al. (2011)	6,446	-	1 meta-analysis reviewed: Williams et al. (2011)	High. A relatively quick and easy intervention to implement with no ongoing commitment. Likely cost-effective given the demonstrated effect
13	Feedback	Recieving regular encouragement from others on progress/ on how to more effectively maintain the target behaviour	Not very worthwhile. Of some value but other interventions listed here appear to require less time/ effort and produce a greater size of effect	Small	0.22	Webb et al. (2010)	-	-	1 systematic review assessed: Webb et al. (2010)	Moderate. A small size of effect. Finding someone to give regular, beneficial feedback should not be overly difficult, but likely requires more time/ effort than several other interventions listed here that are more effective
14	Consequences (motivational information)	Processing information on the benefits of the target behaviour and costs if it is not adopted	Not very worthwhile. It appears that interventions focused on how to implement a behaviour are more effective than those targeting why you should implement it	Very small	0.18	Williams et al. (2011)	6,446	Very high. Range in effect size from 0.17 to 0.19	1 meta-analysis and 1 systematic review assessed: - Williams et al. (2011) - Brannon and Cushing (2014)	Moderate to high. Effect size is not promising but this is still relatively simple and easy to do, even if it may only provide a small positive nudge towards success
15	Social media	Using social media groups/ discussion boards as a support mechanism for behaviour change	Not very worthwhile. Likely of some value, perhaps particularly to people who already use certain groups or discussion boards regularly, but other interventions are likely worth prioritising	Very small	0.18	Laranjo et al. (2014)	7,411	Moderate. Range in effect size from 0.14 to 0.23	2 meta-analyses reviewed: - Laranjo et al. (2014) - Williams et al. (2011)	Low to moderate. Evidence suggests a weak level of effect while this intervention requires a higher level of time/ effort than many others we reviewed
16	Environment	Changing aspects of your personal environment to disrupt negative cues/ help produce positive new cues	Worthwhile. Though we struggled to find useful data, changing your environment to disrupt cues seems worthwhile based on the significant of prompts/ cues discussed above	None found.		Peachey et al. (2020)	5,983	Moderate.	1 meta-analysis and 2 systematic reviews assessed, none of which presented effect sizes: - Peachey et al. (2020): found "environment interventions had the largest effect on daily sitting time (-40.59 mins per day)" - Bianchi et al. (2018) - Lemmens et al. (2008)	Moderate. On the assumption that people's current environments/ patterns of behaviours are relatively optimised to minimise time/ money/ effort, environment changes may be somewhat costly.
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