TY - JOUR

T1 - The effects of pre-intervention mindset induction on a brief intervention to increase risk perception and reduce alcohol use among university students

T2 - A pilot randomized controlled trial

AU - Büchele, Natascha

AU - Keller, Lucas

AU - Zeller, Anja C.

AU - Schrietter, Freya

AU - Treiber, Julia

AU - Gollwitzer, Peter M.

AU - Odenwald, Michael

N1 - The study was funded by the German Research Foundation, www.dfg.de/en/, Project FOR2374; Subprojects awarded to P.M.G. & L.K. (GO 387/18-1) and M.Odenwald (OD113/2-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: Copyright: © 2020 Büchele et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2020/9/17

Y1 - 2020/9/17

N2 - OBJECTIVE: Brief interventions based on personalized feedback have shown promising results in reducing risky alcohol use among university students. We investigated the effects of activating deliberative (predecisional) or implemental (postdecisional) mindsets on the effectiveness of a standardized brief intervention, the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention. This intervention comprises a personalized feedback and a decisional balance exercise. We hypothesized that participants in a deliberative mindset should show better outcomes related to risk perception and behavior than participants in an implemental mindset. METHODS: A sample of 257 students provided baseline measures on risk perception, readiness to change, and alcohol use. Of those, 64 students with risky alcohol use were randomly allocated to one of two mindset induction conditions-deliberative or implemental mindset. Thereafter, they received the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention and completed self-report questionnaires on changes in risk perception, alcohol use, and readiness to change at post-intervention and four-week follow-up. RESULTS: In contrast to our hypotheses, the four-weeks follow-up revealed that participants in the implemental mindset consumed significantly less alcohol than participants in a deliberative mindset did. The former decreased and the latter increased their alcohol intake; resistance to the brief intervention was stronger in the latter condition. However, neither deliberative nor implemental mindset participants showed any changes in risk perceptions or in their readiness to change alcohol consumption. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that mindset induction is a powerful moderator of the effects of the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention. We argue that systematic research on mindset effects on brief intervention techniques aimed to reduce risky alcohol use is highly needed in order to identify the processes involved with commitment and resistance being the main candidates.

AB - OBJECTIVE: Brief interventions based on personalized feedback have shown promising results in reducing risky alcohol use among university students. We investigated the effects of activating deliberative (predecisional) or implemental (postdecisional) mindsets on the effectiveness of a standardized brief intervention, the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention. This intervention comprises a personalized feedback and a decisional balance exercise. We hypothesized that participants in a deliberative mindset should show better outcomes related to risk perception and behavior than participants in an implemental mindset. METHODS: A sample of 257 students provided baseline measures on risk perception, readiness to change, and alcohol use. Of those, 64 students with risky alcohol use were randomly allocated to one of two mindset induction conditions-deliberative or implemental mindset. Thereafter, they received the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention and completed self-report questionnaires on changes in risk perception, alcohol use, and readiness to change at post-intervention and four-week follow-up. RESULTS: In contrast to our hypotheses, the four-weeks follow-up revealed that participants in the implemental mindset consumed significantly less alcohol than participants in a deliberative mindset did. The former decreased and the latter increased their alcohol intake; resistance to the brief intervention was stronger in the latter condition. However, neither deliberative nor implemental mindset participants showed any changes in risk perceptions or in their readiness to change alcohol consumption. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that mindset induction is a powerful moderator of the effects of the ASSIST-linked Brief Intervention. We argue that systematic research on mindset effects on brief intervention techniques aimed to reduce risky alcohol use is highly needed in order to identify the processes involved with commitment and resistance being the main candidates.

KW - Psychology

KW - Adult

KW - Alcohol Drinking

KW - Alcohol Drinking in College

KW - Female

KW - Health Behavior

KW - Health Education/methods

KW - Humans

KW - Male

KW - Pilot Projects

KW - Surveys and Questionnaires

KW - Young Adult

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091192710&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/37266c43-bc1c-30ba-9ce2-ac35de6a1197/

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0238833

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0238833

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 32942294

AN - SCOPUS:85091192710

VL - 15

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 9

M1 - e0238833

ER -