A specific if-then plan made people more likely to collect a coupon
HelpedThe short version
A specific if-then plan got more people to collect a coupon than a plan about spending it.
- 72
- undergraduate students in a lab experiment
- Randomised
- groups picked at random
- Recorded
- behaviour was recorded
- 1 tool
- tested
The study
Who took part
72 university students took part for course credit. Chance decided which of two planning tasks each person got.
What they did
One group planned when, where and how they would collect a coupon. The other group planned how to spend it. Afterwards, a researcher watched in secret whether each one collected the coupon.
What happened
64% of the first group collected the coupon, against 39% of the second group. The paper also pooled 34 earlier studies. Those studies found that such plans hardly changed how committed people felt or how sure they were that they could do it.
What the study found
- Helped
A specific if-then plan got more people to collect a coupon than a plan about spending it.
Small randomised trial of 72 undergraduate students in a lab experiment · vs people who planned how to spend the coupon · behaviour was recorded
How solid is this?
- Groups picked at random
- Behaviour was recorded
- Small group
Source
Mechanisms of implementation intention effects: The role of goal intentions, self-efficacy, and accessibility of plan components (2008)
DOI: 10.1348/014466607X267010 (opens in a new tab)
