Purpose: Approximately 30% of college students are classified as overweight, in part due to lack of healthy eating and regular exercise (Lowry et al., 2000). In light of this, the investigators proposed that by causing college students to feel cognitive dissonance between their attitudes about diet and physical activity and their true diet and physical activity behaviors, students would be more likely to reassess their intentions to engage in these health behaviors. Individuals have been shown to feel the need to reduce any dissonance that they feel between their health attitudes and behaviors, by actively changing their health habits (Leary, Tchividjian, & Kraxberger, 1994). Studies have also shown that interventions designed to threaten individuals' views of how they are perceived are more effective than traditional, information-based health interventions (Feingold, 1992; Leary, Tchividjian, & Kraxberger, 1994; Mahler et al., 2003). The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to examine whether college students made to feel cognitive dissonance regarding their diet/physical activity behaviors were more likely to intend to adopt healthier diet/physical activity habits, and 2) to examine if dissonance influenced the important relationship between risk perceptions and intentions.
Methods: One-hundred twenty six college students (RR = 59.4%) reported a number of diet and exercise behaviors after writing about why diet and exercise promotes health (dissonance-health), or physical appearance (dissonance-appearance); or they wrote about an unrelated topic (control). Risk perceptions related to negative health and appearance consequences caused by inadequate diet/physical activity levels were then assessed. Following this, participants were instructed to indicate whether they intended to change their diet/exercise behaviors, for the better, anytime during the next 6 months. SPSS (Version 13.0) was used to assess the pearson product moment correlations between the treaments and risk perceptions and intentions.
Results: Dissonance did not effect absolute levels of risk perceptions or intentions, but did influence the relationship between risk perceptions and intentions. In particular, there was no correlation in the control group, a negative correlation in the dissonance-appearance group, and a positive correlation in the dissonance-health group.
Discussion: Increasing college students' awareness as to the effects that unhealthy eating and inactivity can have on appearance may alter the perception of self-risk; therefore, may also increase the behavioral intent and self-efficacy needed to make a voluntary adaptation of behavior conducive to health. Interventions designed to emphasize the effect of health behaviors on appearance may be appropriate for certain populations of college students.