Background. Understanding the gap between people's behavioral intentions and their subsequent behavior is a key problem for behavioral scientists, but little attention has been paid to how behavioral intentions are operationalized.Purpose. Test the distinction between asking people what they intend to do, as opposed to what they expect they will do.Methods. Two prospective studies were conducted in the domains of student alcohol consumption (N = 152) and weight loss among overweight/obese people (N = 141).Participants completed questionnaires assessing their behavioral intentions, expectations and self-efficacy at baseline; alcohol consumption/weight were assessed at both baseline and follow-up.Results. In Study 1, expectations were more predictive of subsequent alcohol consumption than behavioral intentions, controlling for baseline alcohol consumption and self-efficacy. In Study 2, changes in expectations were more predictive of weight loss than changes in behavioral intentions, controlling for baseline weight and self-efficacy. Conclusion.The findings support a potentially important distinction between behavioral intentions and expectations.

No abstract

In the Middle East, the prevalence of overweight/obesity is 80%; however, no studies have yet tested the efficacy of interventions to promote weight loss. The aim of the present study was to test the ability of implementation intentions formed using a volitional help sheet to support weight loss among people who were overweight/obese. Participants (N = 216) enrolling in a weight loss program in Kuwait were randomly allocated either to form implementation intentions using a volitional help sheet (intervention group) or to use the volitional help sheet to think about critical situations and appropriate responses but not form implementation intentions (control group). The main outcome measure was weight at 6-month follow-up. Participants in the intervention condition lost significantly more weight (6.15 kg; −6.58% initial body weight) than those in the control condition (3.66 kg; −4.04% initial body weight), M diff = 2.55% initial body weight, SE diff = .92, t(214) = 2.76, p = .006, 95%CI = .73, 4.36, d = .38. The present study is the first to show that implementation intentions work beyond a Western context and that the volitional help sheet could be used in a variety of cultural contexts to enhance weight-loss programs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11121-017-0807-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This study sought to identify the impact of the construal level of people's perception on selected positive psychology factors: happiness, hope, optimism, satisfaction with life, and love of life. The experimental design of the study was based on pre-post measures for four groups, including three experimental groups and one control group. The sample consisted of students from the University of Kuwait studying in several colleges (276 participants: 65 males and 211 females). The study posited that using two construal levels of people's perception concurrently (low/high) would result in a greater impact on the selected positive psychology factors compared with using one construal level and that the smallest impact would occur in a control group. The greatest impact was observed on happiness when applying both construal levels (high/low group), while the smallest impact was found in the control group. The results showed no significant differences for the positive factors regarding the demographic variables except for gender in the case of happiness, in which men felt happier than women. It could be concluded that using high-level and low-level construals increase the opportunity for positive psychology factors like happiness, hope, and optimism.

This study sought to search for potential relationships between religious attitudes and happiness, hope, optimism, satisfaction with life and love of life. In addition, the study sought to determine the impact of the demographic factors such as age, sex, social status, and scientific college on the examined variables in this study. The sample consisted of 479 participant students (192 male and 287 female) studying in several colleges in the University of Kuwait and their ages ranged between 18-24 years. The results supported the first research aim and concluded that there is a relationship between religious attitudes and positive variables. More specificly, the results indicated that the strongest associations were between religious attitudes and optimism, hope, happiness, life satisfaction, and love of life respectively. On the other hand, no significant differences due to demographic factors were found except for age. It could be concluded that religious individual tends to have better mental health and wellbeing.