We used an experimental design to examine young adults’ (N = 247; M age = 19.71; 86% female) intentions to engage in health-promoting behaviors in relation to beliefs concerning whether health is malleable or fixed, and how their health is unfolding over time. Individuals in the incremental (health is malleable) and control conditions viewed their health as improving over time; those in the entity (health is fixed) condition viewed their health as relatively stable. Individuals with more incremental theories of health and those who viewed their health as improving over time (particularly past to present) reported stronger health-promoting behavior intentions.
BerryJMArtisticoDBlackJet al. (2011) Psychological functioning in adulthood: A self-efficacy analysis. In: HoareC (ed.) Handbook of Adult Development and Learning (2nd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 215–247.
2.
BurnetteJL (2010) Implicit theories of body weight: Entity beliefs can weigh you down. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin36: 410–422.
3.
BurnetteJLFinkelEJ (2012) Buffering against weight gain following dieting setbacks: An implicit theory intervention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology48: 721–725.
4.
BusseriMAPeckE (2015) Do (even) depressed individuals believe that life gets better and better? The link between depression and subjective trajectories for life satisfaction. Clinical Psychological Science3: 715–725.
5.
BusseriMAChomaBLSadavaSW (2009a) Functional or fantasy? Examining the implications of subjective temporal perspective “trajectories” for life satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin35: 295–308.
6.
BusseriMAChomaBLSadavaSW (2009b) “As good as it gets” or “the best is yet to come”? How optimists and pessimists view their past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences47: 352–356.
7.
BusseriMAChomaBLSadavaSW (2012) Subjective temporal trajectories for subjective well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology7: 1–15.
8.
ChiuCHongYDweckC (1997) Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology73: 19–30.
9.
CookRFrenchDP (2008) How well do they theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior predict intentions and attendance at screening programmes? A meta-analysis. Psychology & Health23: 745–765.
10.
De WaureCSoffianiVVirdisAet al. (2015) Italian university students’ self-perceived health and satisfaction of life. Annali dell’Istituto superiore di sanità51: 121–125.
11.
DweckCChiuCHongY (1995a) Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A word from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry6: 267–285.
12.
DweckCChiuCHongY (1995b) Implicit theories: Elaboration and extension of the model. Psychological Inquiry6: 322–333.
13.
EaglyAHChaikenS (1993) The Psychology of Attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
14.
FilaSASmithC (2006) Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to healthy eating behaviors in urban Native American youth. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity3: 11.
15.
FitzCCKaufmanAMoorePJ (2015) Lay theories of smoking and young adult nonsmokers’ and smokers’ smoking expectations. Journal of Health Psychology20: 438–445.
16.
FreemanJKingMAl-HaqueRet al. (2012) Health and Health-Related Behaviours among Young People: Ontario. Toronto, ON, Canada: Government of Ontario.
17.
HanBPhillipsCFerrucciLet al. (2005) Change in self-rated health and mortality among community-dwelling disabled older women. The Gerontologist45: 216–221.
18.
HeveyDFrenchDP (2012) Comparative optimism for severity of negative health outcomes. Psychology, Health & Medicine17: 417–426.
19.
HongYChiuCDweckCet al. (1999) Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology77: 588–599.
20.
HoweLDweckC (2015) Changes in self-definition impede recovery from rejection. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin42: 54–71.
21.
KasimatisMMillerMMarcussenL (1996) The effects of implicit theories on exercise motivation. Journal of Research in Personality30: 510–516.
22.
KilpatrickFPCantrilH (1960) Self-anchoring scaling: A measure of individuals’ unique reality worlds. Journal of Individual Psychology16: 158–173.
23.
KwanBMBryanAD (2010) Affective response to exercise as a component of exercise motivation: Attitudes, norms, self-efficacy, and temporal stability intentions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise11: 71–79.
24.
LeeHHuangHLeeMet al. (2012) Factors affecting trajectory patterns of self-rated health (SRH) in an older population—A community-based longitudinal study. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics54: E334–E341.
25.
LuszczynskaAScwarzerRLippkeSet al. (2011) Self-efficacy as a moderator of the planning-behavior relationship in interventions designed to promote physical activity. Psychology & Health26: 151–166.
26.
LyonsCKaufmanARimaB (2013) Implicit theories of the body among college women: Implications for physical activity. Journal of Health Psychology20: 1142–1153.
27.
MarcinkoI (2015) The moderating role of autonomous motivation on the relationship between subjective well-being and physical health. PLoS ONE10: 1–17.
28.
MoldenDCDweckCS (2006) Finding “meaning” in psychology: A lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development. American Psychologist61: 192–203.
29.
Newby-ClarkIRRossM (2003) Conceiving the past and future. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin29: 807–818.
30.
ParkattiTDeegDJBosscherRJet al. (1998) Physical activity and self-rated health among 55- to 89-year-old Dutch people. Journal of Aging and Health10: 311–326.
31.
PeetzJWilsonAE (2008) The temporally extended self: The relation of past and future selves to current identity, motivation, and goal pursuit. Social & Personality Psychology Compass2: 2090–2106.
32.
PlaksJELevySRDweckCS (2009) Lay theories of personality: Cornerstones of meaning in social cognition. Social & Personality Psychology Compass3: 1069–1081.
33.
RattanADweckC (2010) Who confronts prejudice? The role of implicit theories in the motivation to confront prejudice. Psychological Science21: 952–959.
34.
RodgersWMConnerMMurrayTC (2008) Distinguishing among perceived control, perceived difficulty, and self-efficacy as determinants of intentions and behavior. British Journal of Social Psychology47: 607–630.
35.
SaklofkeDHAustinEJGallowayJet al. (2007) Individual difference correlates of health-related behaviours: Preliminary evidence for links between emotional intelligence and coping. Personality and Individual Differences42: 491–502.
36.
SchimmackUOishiS (2005) The influence of chronically and temporarily accessible information on life satisfaction judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology89: 395–406.
37.
SchimmackUDienerEOishiS (2002) Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: The use of chronically accessible and stable resources. Journal of Personality70: 345–384.
38.
ShanahanEBusseriMA (2016) Life gets better and better: Cultural life script theory and the subjective trajectories for life satisfaction. European Journal of Personality30: 564–579.
39.
StaudingerUBluckSHerzbergP (2003) Looking back and looking ahead: Adult age differences in consistency of diachronous ratings of subjective well-being. Psychology and Aging18: 13–24.
40.
SteptoeAWardleJ (2001) Locus of control and health behaviour revisited: A multivariate analysis of young adults from 18 countries. British Journal of Psychology92: 659–672.
41.
ThaiCLCoaKIKaufmanAR (2018) Implicit theories of smoking and association with current smoking status. Journal of Health Psychology23(9): 1234–1239.
42.
YeagerDSJohnsonRSpitzerBet al. (2014) The far-reaching effects of believing people can change: Implicit theories of personality shape stress, health, and achievement during adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology106: 867–884.
43.
YeagerDSWaltonGMBradySTet al. (2016) Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences113: E3341–E3348.
44.
ZimbardoPGBoydJN (2015) Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual differences metric. In: StolarskiMFieulaineNVan BeekW (eds) Time Perspective Theory: Review, Research, and Application. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing, pp. 17–55.
