ReviewPreventive medicine2014
Why behavior change is difficult to sustain.
Review in Preventive medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07612800 (Tailored Brain Health Insights Through Nurturing Knowledge-based Change - Stakeholder-driven, Human-centered, AI-powered Refinement for Prevention), which is not on this map. Cited by 88 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Tailored Brain Health Insights Through Nurturing Knowledge-based Change - Stakeholder-driven, Human-centered, AI-powered Refinement for Prevention (THINK-SHARP)
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Interventions to Reduce the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease among Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Pooled it
- Effect of diabetes self-management education on glycemic control in Latino adults with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Patient education and counseling · 2020Pooled it
- Cue-Reminders to Prevent Health-Risk Behaviors: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in public health · 2019Pooled it
- Evaluation of occupational health and safety intervention for the waste and sanitation workers in Bangladesh during COVID-19.International journal of hygiene and environmental health · 2024Trial
- Acceptance and commitment therapy for individuals with depressive and anxiety symptoms following acquired brain injury: A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across four cases.Neuropsychological rehabilitation · 2023Trial
- Effectiveness and cost of an incentive-based intervention on food safety and income in "dibiteries" in Dakar, Senegal.BMC public health · 2022Trial
- Health care providers' experiences of pain management and attitudes towards digitally supported self-management interventions for chronic pain: a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2021Trial
- Does alcohol cue inhibitory control training survive a context shift?Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2020Trial
- The effectiveness of multi-component interventions targeting physical activity or sedentary behaviour amongst office workers: a three-arm cluster randomised controlled trial.BMC public health · 2020Trial
- Impact of a Mobile Health Intervention on Long-term Nonadherence After Lung Transplantation: Follow-up After a Randomized Controlled Trial.Transplantation · 2020Trial
- The Green Planet: development and early evaluation of a novel method for climate actions in clinical practice.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Participants' Evolving Experiences, Hope, and Coping While Enrolled in a Community-Based Bereavement Support Program: A Pre-Post Mixed-Methods Pilot Study.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Young Adults' Interactions With Food and Nutrition Content on Social Media and Implications for Intervention Design: Semistructured Interview Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Revealing abrupt transitions from goal-directed to habitual behavior.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Co-developing a framework to guide school-based substance use prevention (SSUP) interventions in Ghana.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Lived experiences in action: Relations between community health workers' and clients' perinatal health behaviours in India.Global public health · 2025Article
- Primary auditory cortex activity during early retrieval supports later extinction learning.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2025Article
- Large Language Model Agents for Improving Engagement with Behavior Change Interventions: Application to Digital Mindfulness.Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction · 2025Article
- Digital Catalysts for Noncommunicable Disease Prevention Serious Games and Gamified Applications: Framework Design Study.JMIR serious games · 2025Article
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Unhealthy behavior is responsible for much human disease, and a common goal of contemporary preventive medicine is therefore to encourage behavior change. However, while behavior change often seems easy in the short run, it can be difficult to sustain. This article provides a selective review of research from the basic learning and behavior laboratory that provides some insight into why. The research suggests that methods used to create behavior change (including extinction, counterconditioning, punishment, reinforcement of alternative behavior, and abstinence reinforcement) tend to inhibit, rather than erase, the original behavior. Importantly, the inhibition, and thus behavior change more generally, is often specific to the "context" in which it is learned. In support of this view, the article discusses a number of lapse and relapse phenomena that occur after behavior has been changed (renewal, spontaneous recovery, reinstatement, rapid reacquisition, and resurgence). The findings suggest that changing a behavior can be an inherently unstable and unsteady process; frequent lapses should be expected. In the long run, behavior-change therapies might benefit from paying attention to the context in which behavior change occurs.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.