Does Changing Behavioral Intentions Engender Behavior Change
The meta-analysis this field needs and rarely cites: across dozens of experimental tests, successfully changing people’s intentions produced only modest behaviour change — and the effect collapses for behaviours that have become habitual. This is the strongest quantitative evidence for our core claim that persuasion alone underperforms against entrenched dispositions, and it’s more defensible than any absolute statement that communication “doesn’t work.”
Fills a real gap: until this entry, the Library’s case against comms-alone was qualitative only.
Also see Durably Reducing Transphobia (Deep Canvassing) and Psychology of Habit.
✳ This entry was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed before publishing. See Rights.