PhD
Professor, Psychology
UNC-Chapel Hill
Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program
Area of Interest
I am a social psychologist and conduct research on health behavior change. There are four strands to this work:
- A key focus has been the intention-behavior ‘gap.’ My colleagues and I have shown that people successfully translate (even strong) intentions into action only about 50% of the time (e.g., Orbell & Sheeran, 1998; Sheeran, 2002). Our research also pinpointed several factors that determine the consistency between intentions and behavior (Sheeran, & Webb, 2012).
- A concomitant line of research uses if-then plans or implementation intentions to reduce the intention-behavior ‘gap’ and increase performance of important health behaviors. A series of RCTs has shown that forming if-then plans reduced pregnancy rates among teenagers (by 42% over two years; Martin, Sheeran et al., 2011), enhanced medication adherence among patients with epilepsy (Brown, Sheeran, & Reuber, 2009), and improved attendance for cervical cancer screening (Sheeran & Orbell, 2000), inter alia.
- A third line of research is concerned with providing critical tests of health behavior theories. This work uses meta-analysis to assess how much change in health-related intentions and behavior accrues from interventions that change risk perceptions, fear/worry, perceptions of severity, attitudes, social norms, and self-efficacy (e.g., Sheeran, Harris, & Epton, 2013).
- Recent work has begun to examine nonconscious routes to action and the self-regulation of unwanted, nonconscious influences (Gollwitzer, Sheeran et al., 2011; Rivis & Sheeran, 2013; Sheeran, Gollwitzer, & Bargh, 2013).
Awards and Honors
- Elected Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science, 2013
- Elected Fellow of the European Health Psychology Society, 2012
- Elected Fellow of the British Psychological Society, 2012
- Elected Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, 2011
- Elected Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, 2010
News and Stories
Graphic warnings on little cigars and cigarillos drive higher quit rates, UNC study shows
Adam Goldstein, MD, MPH, and colleagues report that graphic health warnings on little cigars and cigarillos significantly increase users’ intentions to quit and promote behaviors linked to tobacco cessation.
Study finds youth have misperceptions about synthetic nicotine in e-cigarettes
Seth Noar, PhD, Sarah Kowitt, PhD, MPH, and colleagues report in a study that there is widespread uncertainty and misperceptions about the sources of nicotine in e-cigarettes among youth.
