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. 2019 Jan 9;10(1):134–152. doi: 10.1002/jrsm.1334

Table 1.

Overview of the motivation‐enhancing behavior change techniques. The last column displays the number (#) of studies that applied a technique in a study by Michie et al1

Technique Definition #
1. Provide information about behavior‐health link General information about behavior risk, for example, 37
susceptibility to poor health outcomes or
mortality risk in relation to the behavior
2. Provide information on consequences Information about the benefits and costs of action 64
or inaction, focusing on what will happen if the
person does or does not perform the behavior
3. Provide information about other's approval Information about what others think about the 0
person's behavior and whether others will
approve or disapprove of any proposed behavior change
4. Prompt intention formation Encouraging the person to decide to act or set 74
a general goal, for example, to make a behavior
resolution, such as "I will take more exercise next week"
5. Motivational interviewing Prompting the person to provide self‐motivating 17
statements and evaluations of their own behavior
to minimize resistance to change