Implementation Intentions

Implementation Intentions (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1996) are ‘if-then’ plans which aim to promote goal attainment by linking a situational cue (i.e. a good opportunity to act) with a response that would be effective in endorsing the end goal, and thus bring about behavioural change (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006). Implementation intentions differ from mere goal intentions as they not only specify an action they want to achieve, but also detail environmental cues or

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contexts in which the action can be carried out (Gollwitzer, 1993). In this way a course of action is specified when certain environmental conditions occur, and the individual will be prompted to carry out their predefined action. Thus control is held by the environment rather than the individual, as the environmental context specifies when they should act. For example Prestwich, Lawton and Conner (2003) evaluated the effectiveness of an implementation intention intervention for promoting exercise behaviour. All participants completed self-report exercise logs but participants in the implementation intention group were also asked to specify the time, place and type of extra exercise that they would engage in over the following four weeks. They found that participants in the implementation intention group engaged in more exercise activities, spent a longer amount of time exercising per week and displayed greater fitness improvements than the control group.

‘Good intentions’ have found to have little impact on behaviour when they are generic and poorly specified (Sheeran, 2002) and in a meta-analytic review Armitage and Conner (2001) found that an intention to do something accounts for as little as 20% of the variance in actual observed behaviour and 31% of self-reported behaviour. In order to best predict future behaviour, intentions need to include specific actions planned for specific contexts (i.e.

implementation intentions). Studies using self-report behaviour outcome measures have found that using implementation intentions can have a substantial effect on a range of health-related behaviours; such as increased weight loss (Luszczynska, Abraham & Sobczyk, 2007), increased physical activity (Prestwich, Lawton and Conner, 2003); and improved diet (Armitage, 2004).

They have also been shown to reduce the rates of risky behaviours carried out by young people, such as a reduction in the number of consultations for emergency contraception among teenage women (Martin et al, 2009); and reduced risky drinking on Friday nights among young women (Murgraff, Abraham & McDermott, 2006).

There is a growing body of evidence linking implementation intentions with improved goal attainment across a number of health-related behaviours, but investigation of their use in the

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realm of road safety is sparse. Elliott and Armitage (2006) conducted the first study into the use of implementation intention plans to influence driving behaviour. They found that compared to a control group, drivers who made implementation intention plans reported increased compliance with speed limits one-month post baseline. In a second more recent study Brewster, Elliott and Kelly (2015) found that when participants made implementation intentions, they reported significantly less self-reported speeding behaviour one month later when compared to participants who just received general information about the risks of speeding.

Fylan and Stradling (2014) described how there are a range of behavioural change techniques (BCTs) that could be employed to support young drivers improve their driving behaviour but many of these have not yet been utilised in young driver RSIs. Building on initial work by Abraham and Michie (2008) they collated and grouped 27 BCTs commonly used in many areas of health improvement, such as providing information about risk, setting general goals, keeping a record of behaviour and reviewing goals, and explored the extent to which each of the BCTs were being used in six current young, novice and pre-driver RSIs. They found that many of the BCTs were not being used and most RSIs tended to focus on increasing awareness of risks and the potential negative consequences that might occur as a result of specific risky behaviours.

None of the RSIs reviewed used any BCTs that would help the young drivers decide on a behaviour change, feel supported to make the change or know how to manage the change process. Fylan and Stradling (2014) suggested that young driver RSIs may be more effective if they contain specific messages about what behaviour changes need to occur, rather than just giving general encouragement to drive more safely.

To our knowledge the potential for using implementation intentions to improve young driver safety has yet to be directly investigated. Both Elliott and Armitage (2006) and Brewster, Elliott and Kelly (2015) used a large age range of participants, and did not explicitly partition the effect of implementation intentions for older and younger participants. Similarly none of the six interventions reviewed in Fylan and Stradling’s (2014) paper made use of implementation

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intentions within their RSI design. Therefore the present study sought to address this gap in knowledge, exploring whether implementation intentions would act as an enhancement to the Learn2Live intervention. Specifically, we sought to investigate whether participants who attended Learn2Live and made implementation intentions would report improved attitudes and intentions to a greater degree than those who just attended Learn2Live.

Based on the evidence described in the literature review, that when adolescent passengers are in the car with young drivers they are at an increased risk of collision (Simons-Morton, Learner and Singer, 2005) current road safety initiatives are concerned with targeting this issue. They attempt to educate young people of the dangers associated with being a passenger of a teenage driver in order to try and reduce their subsequent involvement in risky driving behaviour. Rowe et al. (2013) investigated the development of risky attitudes from pre-driving to fully-qualified driving in a longitudinal sample of 17-20 year olds. They found that as driver training and driving experience increased, attitudes to driving violations became riskier, especially for speeding. In addition, the attitudes that individuals had as learners predicted their later self-reported engagement in violations as fully qualified drivers. These results are in line with those of Deighton & Luther (2007), who found that learner drivers have already formed their attitudes towards risky driving by the time they start learning to drive, and so they suggested that interventions need to target the attitudes of pre-drivers in order to be effective. Similarly recent research by Roman et al. (2015) found that young drivers’ engagement in various forms of risky behaviour continues throughout their first few months and years of licensure, suggesting that early intervention targeting attitudes and intentions towards risky driving may be necessary in order to effectively reduce their later risk.

On this basis, interventions improving the attitudes of pre-drivers may then help to reduce their engagement in subsequent risky driving once they have passed their test. The L2L initiative targets 17-18-year-old pre-driver adolescents, whom are often passengers in a car owned by a

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young driver. Thus the L2L initiative would appear to be targeting the age group that requires the most critical protection. However to date the evaluation of the scheme has been limited.

Understanding whether interventions work will inform the future design and delivery of these events, and will provide critical evidence regarding which factors underpin the risky behaviour of young driver.