This book explains how actions and inactions arise and change in social contexts, including social media and face-to-face communication. Its multidisciplinary perspective covers research from psychology, communication, public health, business studies, and environmental sciences. The reader can use this cutting-edge approach to design and interpret effects of behavioral change interventions as well as replicate the materials and methods implemented to study them. The author provides an organized set of principles that take the reader from the formation of attitudes and goals, to the structure of action and inaction. It also reflects on how cognitive processes explain excesses of action while inaction persists elsewhere. This practical guide summarises the best practices persuasion and behavioral interventions to promote changes in health, consumer, and social behaviors.

'This book is a treasure. After decades of work by psychologists illuminating processes that unfold in the minds of thinkers, the volume combines that literature with the most important of psychological phenomena: action. At just the right time, Dolores Albarracin has delivered a tour de force.  It is a must for anyone interested in changing the world for the better.'

Jon A. Krosnick - Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Stanford University, California

'It’s a must-read for any behavioral scientist wanting to understand the cognitive and motivational processes that promote actions and the results therefrom. It’s a major theoretical statement with impressive empirical scope that offers practical advice about optimal methods. This is a stunning achievement by a leading attitude researcher.'

Wendy Wood - Provost Professor of Psychology and Business, University of Southern California

'With a strikingly original conceptualization, this book situates action-related choices in a network of central goals – specifically, those of action, knowledge, and social integration. It’s a conceptualization that produces insights any serious student of human behavior would be foolish to forgo.'

Robert Cialdini - Regents' Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University

'In this book, Dolores Albarracín brings together much of what is known about predicting and changing human behavior. Her articulate integration of well-established principles with her own unique perspective, and her rigorous review of basic and applied research, provide an essential resource for anyone interested in understanding why people act the way they do.'

Icek Ajzen - Professor Emeritus of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

'Dolores Albarracín's eye-opening theory, which untangles the relationship between action and inaction, predispositions and persuasion, has profound scholarly and real-world implications.'

Kathleen Hall Jamieson - Professor, University of Pennsylvania

'Do attitudes predict behavior? One of the world’s leading experts on social behavior has accomplished a rare feat: a masterful theoretical treatment, always informed by data, which then takes the difficult step of guiding the application of this knowledge in real-world contexts. It is a tour de force!'

John A. Bargh - James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology and Professor of Management, Yale University

'This is an original, exceptionally detailed, and empirically supported account of how various beliefs, attitudes, and social influences interact with goals and general dispositions toward action and inaction to influence behavior, and are themselves influenced by persuasion and other interventions.'

Joel Cohen - Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Florida

'In this excellent monograph, Dolores Albarracín presents her extensive research on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, placing thCohen, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Floride research in the context of social psychological theory. Among the book’s many achievements, it analyzes why people sometimes act to attain their goals and sometimes fail to act.'

Alice H. Eagly - Professor Emerita of Psychology and James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences Emerita, Northwestern University

'This compelling book examines the fundamental differences between action and inaction dispositions (e.g. goals involving action or inaction). The book outlines the implications of action and inaction for cognition, attitudes, and behavior to provide a clear foundation for future theorizing and research.'

James M. Olson - Professor of Psychology, University of Western Ontario

'I thoroughly enjoyed reading this volume and learned a lot. Dolores Albarracín sheds new light on perennial issues and illuminates emerging topics such as social media measures. This is a wonderful book and a worthy successor to the classic works on attitudes and behavior by Fishbein and Ajzen.'

Paschal Sheeran - Professor of Social Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

'This is a beautifully written book by a brilliant scholar that presents an important, original synthesis of work on attitudes and behavior in critical new ways. Researchers, scholars, students, and those doing conceptual or applied work on attitudes and behavior will find it invaluable to their work.'

Jeffrey D. Fisher - Board of Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of Connecticut