Understanding Health Behavior: An Integrated Model for Social Marketers

Abstract

Many effective social marketing campaigns seek to change health-related behavior by utilizing various health-protective behavioral theories. In this article, we review and integrate three such theories: protection motivation theory (PMT), the extended parallel process model (EPPM), and the transtheoretical model (TTM). We highlight how EPPM and TTM can be used to refine PMT by adding insight into the decision-making process involved when consumers consider whether or not to follow a particular recommended health behavior. Specifically, the development of an integrated PMT model can provide insight into the characteristics of people more or less likely to change, what happens when persuasion fails, and what can be done to increase persuasion. Developing an integrated PMT model opens new avenues of research that have the potential to increase our understanding of behavior and assist in creating more persuasive social marketing campaigns.