The Effect of Nonessentialist Beliefs About Aging on Health Behavior Intentions

Globally, as people expect the longer life expectancy than ever before, people have increasing concerns about their health and aging. Although what people believe regarding aging can affect their health behaviors, limited research has investigated which beliefs regarding aging influence health behaviors. Previous research has shown that essentialist beliefs about aging reflect beliefs that the aging process is fixed, while nonessentialist beliefs about aging reflect the beliefs that the aging process is rather malleable. Since beliefs in nonessentialism regarding aging imply the benefits of health-promoting behaviors, we examine if manipulating nonessentialist beliefs about aging could contribute to intentions to engage in health behaviors. We also investigate if age and income might moderate the effect of nonessentialist beliefs. We conducted an experiment with a sample of American participants of varied ages (n = 599). The results showed that compared to essentialist beliefs, nonessentialist beliefs regarding aging significantly increased an intention to eat healthy food but they did not improve intentions of other health-promoting behaviors in terms of regular exercise and consumption of fruits and vegetables. Income moderated the effect of essentialist beliefs on an intention to eat fruits and vegetables. Specifically, nonessentialist beliefs had a positive effect among high-income people but rendered a negative effect among low-income people. Together, the present findings provide initial evidence that nonessentialist beliefs have a potential to promote health behaviors and call for the further investigation of the effects of educating nonessentialist beliefs on actual health behaviors and the boundary conditions of the effects.

Stakeholders’ User Experience of Using Mobile Apps Facilitating Connected Healthcare after Enterostomy: Qualitative Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Post-discharge care involving telephone follow-up by an enterostomal therapy (ET) nurse is a common form of connected healthcare (cHealth) for post-operative patients with enterostomy. Although telephone follow-up may compensate for the inconvenience of a home visit or a return visit, the present telehomecare cannot completely meet the various needs of patients with enterostomy. Mobile health (mHealth) with apps had shown some promising results in disease management, the success factors for its practical promotion to patients with enterostomy are not elear. The explorations of user experiences are necessary for enhancing the design of cHealth systems. OBJECTIVE The study was aimed to explore the patients’, primary caregivers’, families’, and ET nurses’ health behavior intentions, user experiences, and other recommendations after using the system in telehomecare. METHODS A cHealth system was designed for patients with enterostomy. Two ET nurses, 10 patients (or primary caregivers), and 10 families were recruited for the study. After training, participants were asked to use their mobile applications daily. After 3 patient follow-ups (at the time of enrollment and 1 week and 2 weeks after enrolling), a semi-structured interview was conducted for each participant. Researchers transcribed the interview contents to texts, performed coding with NVivo 11 Pro for Windows (QSR International, Melbourne, Australia) qualitative data analysis Software, and the content through content analysis. RESULTS From the set of stakeholders, 5 patients,5 primary caregivers,10 families and 2 ET nurses were selected. They were all between 21 and 67 years. The results indicated that the stakeholders have 2 primary health behavior intentions: sudden threats and distress and social support and ambient intimacy. There were 3 primary user experiences: intuitive at a glance, self-empowerment and participation and the conflict between utility and value. They also provided some other recommendations for enhancing the design of cHealth systems. CONCLUSIONS This study investigated the health behavior intentions and user experiences of the stakeholders of patients with enterostomy who used mobile apps and a cHealth system for telehomecare and proposed system improvement recommendations. Understanding user experiences and expectations is crucial for system developers to identify the defects in the design of mobile apps and cHealth systems for facilitating the app of cHealth for patients with enterostomy. It is recommended that researchers refer to the recommendations of the users in this study to improve cHealth system designs and to explore the costs and benefits of systems that implement cHealth models for patients after enterostomy.

How Mobile App Design Impacts User Responses to Mixed Self-Tracking Outcomes: Randomized Online Experiment to Explore the Role of Spatial Distance for Hedonic Editing (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Goal setting is among the most common behavioral change techniques employed in contemporary self-tracking apps. For these techniques to be effective, it is relevant to understand how the visual presentation of goal-related outcomes employed in the app design affects users’ responses to their self-tracking outcomes. OBJECTIVE This study examined whether a spatially close (vs distant) presentation of mixed positive and negative self-tracking outcomes from multiple domains (ie, activity, diet) on a digital device’s screen can provide users the opportunity to hedonically edit their self-tracking outcome profile (ie, to view their mixed self-tracking outcomes in the most positive light). Further, this study examined how the opportunity to hedonically edit one’s self-tracking outcome profile relates to users’ future health behavior intentions. METHODS To assess users’ responses to a spatially close (vs distant) presentation of a mixed-gain (vs mixed-loss) self-tracking outcome profile, a randomized 2×2 between-subjects online experiment with a final sample of 397 participants (mean age 27.4, SD 7.2 years; 71.5%, 284/397 female) was conducted in Germany. The experiment started with a cover story about a fictitious self-tracking app. Thereafter, participants saw one of four manipulated self-tracking outcome profiles. Variables of interest measured were health behavior intentions, compensatory health beliefs, health motivation, and recall of the outcome profile. We analyzed data using chi-square tests (SPSS version 23) and moderated mediation analyses with the PROCESS macro 2.16.1. RESULTS Spatial distance facilitated hedonic editing, which was indicated by systematic memory biases in users’ recall of positive and negative self-tracking outcomes. In the case of a mixed-gain outcome profile, a spatially close (vs distant) presentation tended to increase the underestimation of the negative outcome (P=.06). In the case of a mixed-loss outcome profile, a spatially distant (vs close) presentation facilitated the exact recognition of the positive outcome (P=.04). When the presentation of self-tracking outcomes provided the opportunity for hedonic editing, users with a low (vs high) health motivation produced compensatory health beliefs, which led to lower health behavior intentions (index of moderated mediation=0.0352, 95% CI 0.0011-0.0923). CONCLUSIONS When spatial distance between the presentations of mixed self-tracking outcomes provided the opportunity to hedonically edit one’s self-tracking outcome profile, users recalled their self-tracking outcomes in a more positive light. Especially for users with lower health motivation, the opportunity to hedonically edit one’s mixed self-tracking outcome profile led to reduced health behavior intentions. To prevent the occurrence of hedonic editing in users’ responses to visually presented self-tracking outcome profiles, further research is necessary to determine the ideal distance that should be employed in the app design for the presentation of mixed self-tracking outcomes on a digital device’s screen.

Lay theories of health, self-rated health, and health behavior intentions

We used an experimental design to examine young adults’ ( N = 247; M age = 19.71; 86% female) intentions to engage in health-promoting behaviors in relation to beliefs concerning whether health is malleable or fixed, and how their health is unfolding over time. Individuals in the incremental (health is malleable) and control conditions viewed their health as improving over time; those in the entity (health is fixed) condition viewed their health as relatively stable. Individuals with more incremental theories of health and those who viewed their health as improving over time (particularly past to present) reported stronger health-promoting behavior intentions.