ÌÇÐÄVlog

Dr Phillippa Lally is a world-leading researcher on the psychology of habit. Her 2010 paper on habit formation made a seminal contribution to habit theory and continues to be held-up as the gold-standard for habit formation research. Dr Lally is passionate about applying habit theory to behaviour change interventions in a way which both improves the outcomes of these interventions and answers fundamental questions about making and breaking habits. Dr Lally has applied habit theory to various behaviours with a focus on the health behaviours of those living with and beyond cancer. She co-leads a Yorkshire Cancer Research funded trial (APPROACH; PI with Prof Fisher, University College London) which tests an app-based habit intervention to increase physical activity in adults with breast, prostate and colorectal cancer. Dr Lally is co-Lead of the Institute for Sustainability's Sustainability through Behaviour Change programme, and co-Lead of the European Health Psychology Society Habit Special Interest Group.

Prof Adriaanse’s work focuses on self-regulation, nudging, and habits. She studies the interplay between deliberate (e.g., good intentions) and more automatic processes (habits) on behaviour and behaviour change. She is also interested in understanding how habits are formed, and which factors promote the formation and disruption of habits. Her work also focuses on developing and testing self-regulation strategies that aid individuals in their efforts to behave more healthily. An example of such a strategy is the use of cue-based planning (implementation intentions) to overcome the so-called intention-behaviour gap when trying to increase health promoting behaviours or decrease unhealthy habits, such as unhealthy eating habits. Self-control, or willpower, is another related theme in my research. Prof Adriaanse also studies the use of ‘nudging’, i.e. behaviour change strategies that alter the environment in such a way that it becomes more likely that individuals will make a desired (healthy) choice.

Dr Beeken is an Associate Professor supported by a Yorkshire Cancer Research University Academic Fellowship. Her academic background is in behavioural science and health psychology, and her primary research interest is in behaviour change for cancer prevention and control.

Dr Beeken works on a number of studies focused on developing and trialling complex interventions to improve outcomes for people living with and beyond cancer. She currently co-leads a Cancer Research UK funded project (PI with Dr Fisher, University College London) exploring the efficacy of a brief, habit-based intervention for improving dietary and physical activity behaviours in people living with and beyond cancer (). She also co-leads the Breast Cancer Now funded We Sure Can trial (PI with Dr Smith, University of Leeds), which is piloting a total diet replacement intervention to support weight loss in women with stage II-III breast cancer affected by excess weight. Additionally, she is a co-investgator on two Yorkshire Cancer Research funded studies in this area; the APPROACH study (PIs: Dr Fisher & Dr Lally, UCL/ÌÇÐÄVlog) is exploring the potential of a mobile phone application to increase physical activity in Yorkshire cancer patients, and the CANVAS study (PI: Professor Velikova, University of Leeds) aims to develop, implement and evaluate satisfaction with an improved electronic system to engage breast and bowel cancer survivors to self-report symptoms/problems online from home and get immediate tailored advice for self-management or hospital contact.

The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre

Dr Colvin in a Psychologist at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre in Canada. He completed his PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa. In his clinical work, Dr Colvin works with individuals across the lifespan addressing various mental health concerns including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addictions, and personality disorders. His doctoral dissertation focused on how habit theory can be applied to positive and negative thinking in the context of mental health (i.e. mental habits). He is also broadly interested in how habit theory can be applied to describe and treat mental health problems.

Robert is a Post Doc researcher at the Department of Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, University of Bern. His research interests and expertise are in degrading unwanted habits, craving, addiction, analysis of intensive longitudinal data, and systematic reviews. His current research investigates the temporal dynamics and determinants of degrading habits, while his earlier work has dealt with problem gambling.

Dr More is a Lecturer at University of St Andrews. Her research lays at the intersection of Social and Health Psychology, with a focus on how researchers and interventionists can increase intentions to engage in healthy behaviour as well as how intention can be translated into behavioural initiation and subsequent maintenance through targeting both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. To date, her research program has focused on promoting both simple health behaviours, such as calcium consumption in young women, and complex health behaviours, such as increasing fruit and vegetable intake in college students as well as promoting exercise in both inactive young adults and older adults with chronic illness (i.e., cancer). This examination of how to best promote behavioural engagement, and of which mechanisms support or hinder uptake of health behaviours, has focused on affective processes, social cognition, habits, and identity. Dr More’s current habit-related research focuses on higher-order nutrition habits and the intersection between health-habits and other automatic and controlled processes such as self-regulation and identity.

Professor Barbara Mullan is a research academic and registered Health Psychologist. Her primary interests and expertise lie in the use of social cognition models in predicting, changing and improving health behaviours, with a strong focus on habitual behaviours. Her most recent research has focused on important population health problems such as safe food handling, dietary behaviours and alcohol consumption. The majority of her research focuses on habit application and theory-based interventions, using behaviour change techniques.

Prof Phillips is Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, a member of the European Health Psychological Society, and a member and Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. She is particularly interested in developing and testing interventions for health-related and climate-action-related habits. In general, her expertise lies in behaviour change theory and techniques geared specifically towards longer-term behavioural maintenance. Populations of interest include healthy adults and adults managing chronic illness. Her methodological skills include longitudinal data analysis, MOST (multiphase optimization trials) intervention design and analysis, experimental design and analysis, objective behavioral measurement (via behavior sensors), and scale (self-report survey) development and validation.

Dr Sebastian Potthoff is a Chartered Health Psychologist and Assistant Professor at Northumbria University whose research focuses on the intersection between Health Psychology and Implementation Science. His research draws upon theories and approaches from behavioural medicine to develop and evaluate interventions aimed at changing healthcare professional behaviour and health behaviours of patients and the public. Dr Potthoff is particularly interested in the role of habitual and routine clinical behaviours and how to change them to create lasting change.

His work includes applying novel research methodologies and comprehensive approaches to stakeholder engagement to understand and shape the processes of healthcare improvement through implementation of change in practice. His research interests include applied health research (qualitative/mixed methods) in relation to a broad range of health issues, including mental health, alcohol misuse, chronic diseases and e-health interventions. 

Dr Potthoff is a Head Editor of the , an online publication, addressed to healthcare practitioners, on cutting edge psychology research and how to apply it in practice, published in 30 languages. He is a Director of the  initiative which aims to accelerate the implementation and evaluation of evidence-based open digital health tools.

Dr Rebar is Director of the Motivation of Health Behaviours (MoHB) Lab at University of South Carolina, USA. She has experience providing evidence-based guidance for community-based programs with a focus on mental health and safety outcomes. Dr Rebar’s research focuses on the psychology of behaviour change and the impact of changes in behaviour on mental health and wellbeing. While her work draws on a range of methodologies, she is a strong advocate for longitudinal repeated assessment designs and multi-level analysis for testing predictive relationships in real-world contexts.

Ashley Shaw is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He works primarily in the philosophy of mind and action; in particular, on the nature of desire and goal-directed behaviour, and their relationship with consciousness, self-control and self-knowledge. He is currently working on developing an interdisplinary account of habitual behaviour and its relationship to rational agency.

Dr Katarzyna (Kathy) Stawarz is a Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, and Honorary Lecturer at University of Bristol. Her research interests and expertise are in the use of ubiquitous technologies to support health and wellbeing. Her work explores how emerging technologies could be used to support healthy habits by leveraging people's environment and their daily routines. In a broader sense, she is interested in ethical design, the "dark side" of digital health and unintended consequences, as well as building inclusive digital health technologies that fit into people’s lives.

Pam ten Broeke is broadly interested in studying the fundamental underlying mechanisms of health and health behavior, with the ultimate goal of helping people behave more healthy. Her PhD focused on the underlying psychology of sedentary behavior, applying research insights and theory on the concepts of habit, goals, self-regulation, and embodied cognitions.

Prof Webb is a social psychologist, interested in how people achieve their goals and make changes to their behaviour. Much of his research to date has investigated how the effects of motivation can be boosted by strategies such as monitoring progress, responding with self-compassion to lapses, or forming specific plans that link good opportunities to act with suitable responses to those opportunities. Prof Webb’s current areas of interest and expertise focus on the role of behavioural science in multidisciplinary efforts to promote more sustainable behaviour (e.g., enabling reuse of plastic), and understanding how different behaviours are related (and how methods for formalising knowledge can facilitate this). Prof Webb works with a number of organisations on promoting behaviour change in various contexts. For example, he is contributing to work on strategies for reducing single use plastics as part of a large multidisciplinary project that brings together scientists from across the University, and he leads the behavioural component of , which seeks to help everyone to live healthier, independent lives for longer. 

Dr Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Human-Centered AI in the Human-Technology Interaction group at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). While he has a broad interest in connecting psychology with artificial intelligence (AI), his primary focus is on using AI for (health-related) behaviour change. He uses theory-based computational models to study cognitive processes underlying health behaviours, such as habit formation, habit-goal interaction, and decision-making involving self-control conflicts. His multidisciplinary approach has led to publications in health psychology, digital health, and user modeling journals.

Jonathon is a PhD candidate in the Department of Kinesiology and Health at Rutgers University. His research examines the role of mental demand to engage in physical activity and long-term maintenance. He is currently working on his dissertation, a longitudinal study investigating the relationship between mental demand and physical activity behavior. A secondary aim is to examine the relationships between automatic constructs—specifically habit and identity—and the mental demand for physical activity.

Laura is a PhD candidate at the Department of Health Science at the University of Bern. Her research focuses on the conceptualisation and measurement of habit, as well as the degradation of habits for unhealthy behaviours, such as sedentary behaviour and social media usage. She is currently conducting a scoping review and meta-analysis to map existing habit measures and evaluate their psychometric properties.