Pioneering Approaches in the Basic Science of Behavior Change Provide New Roadmap for Intervention

Ten investigative teams from across the country reveal methods to advance research on human behavior change in the journal Health Psychology

MANHASSET, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A pioneering collaboration between 10 prestigious institutions across the nation has released a special issue of the peer-reviewed academic journal Health Psychology that proposes groundbreaking approaches to uncover basic processes that influence a person’s decision to make behavioral change. This collaboration involves researchers at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Columbia University, Medical University of South Carolina, Oregon Health & Science University, SUNY Downstate Health University, Yale University, University of California Berkeley, University of Connecticut, Harvard University and Boston University.

In the special issue, the authors unveil nearly a dozen behavioral scientific tests and two commentaries covering diverse scientific areas in behavior change interventions. They describe how investigative teams use the experimental method to advance our understanding of what drives a person to change their behavior, with examples surrounding medication adherence, mindfulness training, and episodic future thinking.

Importantly, each scientific team describes how they have adhered to Open Science processes – the concept of making scientific research and data accessible to all – in the conceptualization and implementation of their project. With this new knowledge, researchers can move beyond a trial-and-error approach to develop powerful evidence-based tools to improve behavior change interventions across a wide range of human behavior.

The September 2020 Health Psychology issue was co-edited by Karina Davidson, PhD, senior vice president of research at Feinstein Institutes and Alex J. Rothman, PhD, professor at the University of Minnesota.

“The ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind a person’s behavior change has remained a mystery to researchers,” said Dr. Davidson. “Through our collaborative efforts, we have been able to develop and propose blueprints for rigorous interventions that could reliably improve health outcomes across the behavioral science field.”

The efforts behind this publication support the critical mission of the Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) consortium. The SOBC brings together scientists from various disciplines to experiment on basic behavioral causal mechanisms and thereby develop more effective behavioral interventions. Its initial efforts assembled groups to study mechanisms related to self-regulation, stress reactivity and resilience, and interpersonal and social processes. More recently, the SOBC has built on that knowledge by forming the SOBC Research Network, which consists of additional research teams studying many basic mechanisms of human behavior change.

The SOBC is part of the National Institutes of Health Common Fund initiative, which aims to address challenges in biomedical research that would not be possible without the collaborative efforts of several institutions. The Common Fund supports high-risk, innovative projects that could have an extraordinary impact. These transformative projects are designed to change paradigms, develop novel tools and technologies, and provide fundamental foundations for research that can be shared with the biomedical research community.

“We are delighted to have supported this critically important initiative of the SOBC Common Fund,” said Dr. Davidson. “These efforts provide an important roadmap for the development of rigorous new methods for behavioral intervention.”

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health SOBC Common Fund Program through a grant award (U24AG052175) administered by the National Institute on Aging.

About the Feinstein Institutes

The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research is the research arm of Northwell Health, the largest health care provider and private employer in New York State. Home to 50 research labs, 3,000 clinical research studies and 5,000 researchers and staff, the Feinstein Institutes raises the standard of medical innovation through its five institutes of behavioral science, bioelectronic medicine, cancer, health innovations and outcomes, and molecular medicine. We make breakthroughs in genetics, oncology, brain research, mental health, autoimmunity, and are the global scientific leader in bioelectronic medicine – a new field of science that has the potential to revolutionize medicine. For more information about how we produce knowledge to cure disease, visit http://feinstein.northwell.edu and follow us on LinkedIn.