Temporal Self-regulation Theory Research Articles

Hygienic food handling behaviors: attempting to bridge the intention-behavior gap using aspects from temporal self-regulation theory.

An estimated 25% of the populations of both the United States and Australia suffer from foodborne illness every year, generally as a result of incorrect food handling practices. The aim of the current study was to determine through the application of the theory of planned behavior what motivates these behaviors and to supplement the model with two aspects of temporal self-regulation theory--behavioral prepotency and executive function--in an attempt to bridge the "intention-behavior gap." A prospective 1-week design was utilized to investigate the prediction of food hygiene using the theory of planned behavior with the additional variables of behavioral prepotency and executive function. One hundred forty-nine undergraduate psychology students completed two neurocognitive executive function tasks and a self-report questionnaire assessing theory of planned behavior variables, behavioral prepotency, and intentions to perform hygienic food handling behaviors. A week later, behavior was assessed via a follow-up self-report questionnaire. It was found that subjective norm and perceived behavioral control predicted intentions and intentions predicted behavior. However, behavioral prepotency was found to be the strongest predictor of behavior, over and above intentions, suggesting that food hygiene behavior is habitual. Neither executive function measure of self-regulation predicted any additional variance. These results provide support for the utility of the theory of planned behavior in this health domain, but the augmentation of the theory with two aspects of temporal self-regulation theory was only partially successful.

Habits and temporality: a commentary on Hall and Fong's temporal self-regulation theory

This innovative paper tries to provide a theoretical framework that tries to resolve some problems with existing theories of behaviour change. Temporal self-regulation theory (TST) focuses appropri...

Temporal Self-Regulation Theory: towards a more comprehensive understanding of health behaviour

Temporal Self-Regulation Theory (TST), as presented by Hall and Fong (2007), meets a critical set of criteria for a useful theory. First, a good theory is one that offers new directions for researc...

Temporal Self-Regulation Theory: a step forward in the evolution of health behaviour models

Hall and Fong (2007) have taken on a major challenge by attempting to improve on existing health behaviour models, of which there are many (Glanz, Rimer, & Viswanath, 2008). Crafting their Temporal...

Temporal self-regulation theory: looking forward

In our target article (Hall & Fong, 2007), published in the inaugural issue of Health Psychology Review, we set out to review a large volume of empirical and conceptual work from the past half-cent...

A viable, integrative framework for contemporary research in health psychology: commentary on Hall and Fong's Temporal Self-regulation Theory

Temporal Self-regulation Theory (TST; Hall & Fong, 2007) is a valuable new theory in health psychology. In particular, TST (a) explains the seeming irrationality of health-risk behaviour (in terms ...

Temporal self-regulation theory: A model for individual health behavior

Human behavior often seems “maladaptive”, “self-defeating”, or “dysfunctional” to the observer. Upon closer examination, the rationality of human behavior largely depends on the temporal frame adopted; behaviors judged to be maladaptive in the long-run are usually driven by a strongly favorable balance of immediate costs and benefits. That is, many ‘‘maladaptive’’ behaviors are associated with substantial long-term costs and few (if any) long-term benefits; however, these same behaviors are frequently associated with many benefits and few costs for the individual at the time of action. In contrast, many avoided behaviors that seem ‘‘adaptive’’ to the outside observer, are in fact associated with substantial costs (and few benefits) at the time of action, leading to the perplexing but common state of affairs where individuals know ‘‘what is good for them’’, but do not do it. We present a new theoretical framework—Temporal Self-Regulation Theory—as a way of understanding human behavior in general, and those special instances of seemingly ‘‘self-defeating’’ behavior that have important implications for physical health. This theoretical framework incorporates thinking about temporal aspects of behavioral contingencies and the biological roots of self-regulation to make sense of human behavioral patterns that seem to represent, on the surface, significant deviations from rationality.