Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change)

Abstract The transtheoretical model (TTM) is a widely used model of health behavior change (e.g., smoking cessation, eating more healthily), with roots in clinical psychology, having been developed initially to unify the scattered field of psychotherapies. In spite of its successes in enhancing our understanding of change and interventions development, it has received substantial resistance from researchers, partly because of misperceptions of the model. The aim of the present entry is to further improve our understanding of the TTM by going beyond its specific conceptualizations and operationalizations. The pros and cons and self‐efficacy in the TTM are the same as outcome and self‐efficacy expectations in social cognitive theory (SCT). This means that the TTM includes the most important psychological determinants of behavior. The processes of change are manifestations of self‐regulation. This places the TTM among contemporary goal theories, including the SCT. Its core organizing concept of stages of change in which people move through five different stages in behavior change can be seen as one application of systems theory to behavior change. In this conceptualization, humans are biological and symbolic systems whose change follows the higher‐level laws of systems theory. By understanding the TTM through these other well‐known theories, it becomes clear that it has a solid base in social cognitive theorizing. It also makes clear that the TTM's unique stage concepts, which need further development, have their foundations in systems theory, which can show how the social cognitive constructs are organized in time when behavior changes.