Empowering Questions Affect How People Construe Their Behavior: Why How You Ask Matters in Self-Attributions for Physical Exercise and Healthy Eating

Abstract

Subtle manipulations of wording can significantly affect behavior. We examine differences in how people respond to empowering questions (e.g., “What could you do to exercise more?”) compared with disempowering questions (e.g., “Why aren’t you exercising more?”). Responding to two different topics (exercise and eating behavior), participants in empowering question conditions offered more solutions in their responses, placed more responsibility on themselves rather than on external factors, were more optimistic, and referred more to the future. Participants in disempowering conditions gave more excuses, placed more responsibility on situational factors, were more pessimistic, and focused more on obstacles.