Abstract

Behaviour change continues to be a central concern for health promoters, irrespective of where they do their work. This presentation will address how recent developments in understanding of human decision-making have revised understanding about behaviour change. These developments have been made by economists, social scientists and psychologists, meaning that their relevance to health promotion has yet to be optimised. Importantly, these new insights highlight the importance of health promoters not only continuing to address rationale decision-making, but also acting to optimise the value of contextual changes that hinge on instinctive, automated cognitive functions. This presentation will offer (A) a number of challenges and (B) suggestions about how to respond to these new discoveries across a range of behaviour change scenarios.