Beyond Motivation: How Physical and Cognitive Environments Determine Health-Related Behavior

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Jutta Mata
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2008 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 91153951

Overweight and obesity across all age groups have become a costly health problem in the Western world. Most psychological research studying related health behaviors (e.g., physical activity, behavioral nutrition) has focused on the individual, leaving a substantial portion of the variance in these behaviors unexplained. Scientists agree that the recent increase in overweight and obesity must be due to changes in the environment. Despite promising results on how environment structure impacts health behavior, aspects of the environment are rarely considered in psychological theories. The two projects I propose to do at Stanford University address this issue of integrating environmental aspects into psychological theories. The first project aims at studying how perceived and actual neighborhood environment characteristics along with demographic and psychosocial factors affect physical activity and weight status of older and younger adults. The second project investigates how weight loss achieved through altered nutrition and physical activity can be maintained, focusing on perceived and actual characteristics of the cognitive environment (i.e., rules of a diet program). These projects provide a unique context in which to better understand environmental influences and advance current psychological theories on health behavior.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professorin Dr. Abby C. King