In the 1930s BF skinner pioneered Behaviourism. By placing a hungry rat inside a box with a lever and food dispenser, he proved that an ‘operant’ can learn a new behaviour as a result of incentives and their consequential rewards. From Skinner’s Box experiments we learn that our environments are just as vital in manipulating behaviour changes as our internal, cognitive mechanisms. Since the 1930s, our environments have changed significantly. As time progresses, more components of our daily lives, such as social interaction, money and entertainment, have become digitalised. Effectively, rewards and punishments that typically guide behaviour can all be attained via a smartphone application, rather than in the natural environment In
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For instance, the ‘one size fits all’ approach to behaviour change is vastly erroneous (Eccles et al 2005). In order for an intervention to be effective, it needs to be tailored to be relevant to a users circumstances, such as socioeconomic status, level of education, age or gender. The Behaviour Change Wheel theory is appropriate for this. This theory encourages interventions to be developed on evidence-based practices, and requires interventions to be linked to a target behavior which has been previously analysed in the app user (Mitche, Stralen & West 2011). The theory explains the sources of the ‘COM’ components of the COM-B model. For example, it states that Opportunities arise from social and physical reasons. The behavior change wheel then expands on the COM-B model by suggesting possible intervention strategies for each component of behavior, such as education or …show more content…
For instance, ‘exergames’ such as ‘Wii Fit’ include an interactive features that allows users to connect with their friends, which creates competition and encouragement from peers. (Chao et al 2013). Exergames can also be developed for smartphones and are influenced by SDT (Peng et al 2012). For example, the summer of 2016 saw the launch of ‘Pokemon Go’, which reached audiences globally. The app was so successful as gamers were intrinsically motivated to play with their friends, yet extrinsically motivated by the element of competition in the app. This overall encouraged users to be more physically active. (Ghosh & Misra 2016 To conclude, the most prevalent causes of death are a direct result of diet and lifestyle (Lim et al 2012). Therefore, it is vital, that as we adapt our behavior to comply with a more technology orientated society, awareness of health behavior is a strong component in this shift. Especially considering that smartphone technology is absorbed by a younger audience, the popularity of smartphone apps opportunity to encourage healthy behaviors amongst future
For instance, the ‘one size fits all’ approach to behaviour change is vastly erroneous (Eccles et al 2005). In order for an intervention to be effective, it needs to be tailored to be relevant to a users circumstances, such as socioeconomic status, level of education, age or gender. The Behaviour Change Wheel theory is appropriate for this. This theory encourages interventions to be developed on evidence-based practices, and requires interventions to be linked to a target behavior which has been previously analysed in the app user (Mitche, Stralen & West 2011). The theory explains the sources of the ‘COM’ components of the COM-B model. For example, it states that Opportunities arise from social and physical reasons. The behavior change wheel then expands on the COM-B model by suggesting possible intervention strategies for each component of behavior, such as education or …show more content…
For instance, ‘exergames’ such as ‘Wii Fit’ include an interactive features that allows users to connect with their friends, which creates competition and encouragement from peers. (Chao et al 2013). Exergames can also be developed for smartphones and are influenced by SDT (Peng et al 2012). For example, the summer of 2016 saw the launch of ‘Pokemon Go’, which reached audiences globally. The app was so successful as gamers were intrinsically motivated to play with their friends, yet extrinsically motivated by the element of competition in the app. This overall encouraged users to be more physically active. (Ghosh & Misra 2016 To conclude, the most prevalent causes of death are a direct result of diet and lifestyle (Lim et al 2012). Therefore, it is vital, that as we adapt our behavior to comply with a more technology orientated society, awareness of health behavior is a strong component in this shift. Especially considering that smartphone technology is absorbed by a younger audience, the popularity of smartphone apps opportunity to encourage healthy behaviors amongst future