Episodic Future Thinking and Compassion

Summary

During the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic, public health departments have issued guidelines to limit viral transmission. In this environment, people will feel urges to engage in activities that violate these guidelines, but research on guideline adherence has been reliant on surveys asking people to self-report their typical behaviour, which may fail to capture these urges as they unfold. Guideline adherence could be improved through behaviour change interventions, but considering the wide range of behaviours that COVID-19 guidelines prescribe, there are few methods that allow observing changes of aggregate guideline adherence in the 'wild'. In order to administer interventions and to obtain contemporaneous data on a wide range of behaviours, the researchers use ecological momentary assessment. In this preregistered parallel randomised trial, 95 participants aged 18-65 from the United Kingdom were assigned to three conditions using blinded block randomisation, and engage in episodic future thinking (n = 33), compassion exercises (n = 31), or a sham procedure (n = 31) and report regularly on the intensity of their occurrent urges (min. 1, max. 10) and their ability to control them. The researchers investigate whether state impulsivity and vaccine attitudes predict guideline adherence, while assessing through which mechanism these predictors affect behaviour.

Conditions

• Compliant Behavior
• Self-Control
• Impulsive Behavior

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Episodic Future Thinking

Participants are invited to imagine themselves in a positive situation after COVID-19 public health restrictions and guidelines are lifted. They are then reminded that their actions are able to change how soon this future can be achieved.

BEHAVIORAL

Compassion Training

Participants are invited to imagine themselves in someone else's situation, who is in a bad situation due to COVID-19 (e.g., ER nurse, family of someone in ICU). They are then reminded that their decisions have an impact on the occurrence of these situations.

BEHAVIORAL

Sham

Participants are invited to reflect on some COVID-19 related news, and reminded that their actions have bearing on the COVID-19 situation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Martin & Loreto Hosking's Three Springs Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Australian Research Council

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Monash University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-03-29

Primary Completion

2021-04-04

Completion

2021-04-04

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations