Table 3.

Target MoAs of BCTs described by included studies

Mechanism of Action (MoA)	Number of studies applying/recommending MoA	Studies
Knowledge	24	[19, 20, 37, 52–72]
Social influences	24	[19, 20, 37, 52–72]
Beliefs about capabilities	24	[19, 20, 37, 52–72]
Skills	23	[19, 20, 37, 52–67, 69–72]
Intentions	23	[19, 20, 37, 52–71]
General attitudes/beliefs	23	[19, 20, 37, 52–67, 69–72]
Goals	22	[19, 20, 37, 52–54, 56–71]
Attitude towards the behavior	21	[19, 20, 37, 52–66, 68, 69, 72]
Feedback processes	20	[19, 20, 37, 52, 53, 54–58, 60–64, 68–70, 72]
Motivation	20	[19, 20, 37, 52–58, 60, 62–64, 66–70, 72]
Behavioral regulation	18	[19, 20, 37, 52, 53, 56–59, 61, 64–70, 72]
Environmental context and resources	18	[19, 20, 37, 52–55, 57–60, 63–67, 70–72]
Norms/Subjective norms	11	[19, 37, 53, 54, 56–58, 60, 61, 65, 71]
Behavioral cueing	11	[37, 52, 54, 55, 58, 60, 63, 66, 67, 69, 70]
Beliefs about consequences	10	[19, 20, 37, 52, 53, 57, 66, 67–69]
Perceived susceptibility/vulnerability	5	[37, 52, 57, 68, 69]
Memory, attention, and decision processes	4	[37, 52, 66, 70]

Knowledge: an awareness of the existence of something; social influences: interpersonal processes that can cause oneself to change one’s thoughts, feelings or behaviors; beliefs about capabilities: beliefs about one’s ability to successfully carry out a behavior; skills: an ability or proficiency acquired through practice; general attitudes/beliefs: evaluations of an object, person, group, issue or concept on a scale ranging from negative to positive; goals: mental representations of outcomes or end states that an individual wants to achieve; attitude towards the behavior: the general evaluations of the behavior on a scale ranging from negative to positive; feedback processes: processes through which current behavior is compared against a particular standard; motivation: processes relating to the impetus that gives purpose or direction to behavior and operates at a conscious or unconscious level; behavioral regulation: behavioral, cognitive and/or emotional skills for managing or changing behavior; environmental context and resources: aspects of a person’s situation or environment that discourage or encourage the behavior; norms: the attitudes held and behaviors exhibited by other people within a social group; subjective norms: one’s perceptions of what most other people within a social group believe and do; behavioral cueing: processes by which behavior is triggered from either the external environment, the performance of another behavior, or from ideas appearing in consciousness; beliefs about consequences: beliefs about the consequences of the behavior, including about what will be achieved and/or lost by undertaking a behavior; perceived susceptibility/vulnerability: perceptions of the likelihood that one is vulnerable to a threat; memory, attention and decision processes: ability to retain information, focus on aspects of the environment and choose between two or more alternatives.