Speaker: Derwin K. C. Chan PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong

Time: 2017-12-12 13:30 - 15:00

Venue: Room 1115, Wang Kezhen Building

Abstract: In many social contexts like sport and physical activity, workplace, clinic, and even in school, people are supposed to commit to certain behaviours to keep them in good shape. For example, workers are supposed to follow health and safety guidelines, patients are supposed to adhere to prescribed treatment, students are supposed to do their homework after school, and athletes are supposed to avoid using banned performance-enhancing substances. However, in many cases, people do not fully commit to the advised behaviours in the long-term, leading to negative consequences, such as heightened risk of work-related injury, disease, or deficiency, extended length of recovery, and poor academic results. Understanding the psychological processes of why and why not individuals commit to the advisory behaviour may not only advance the prediction and diagnosis of dropout and non-compliance actions, but it may also lead to the development of evidence-based behaviour change strategies to facilitate human behavioural adherence. In this seminar, I will present a series of research that applies integrated behaviour change models to explain key psychological factors of human behaviours in consideration of cross-cultural and methodological issues.

Host: Xin Zhang