Research topic

Closing the intention-behaviour gap: validating and testing the promise of behaviour change literacy for parental mediation

This doctoral thesis aims to examine to what extent behaviour change literacy might be a promising concept to explain the intention-behaviour gap in the context of digital behaviours. Families play a major role in shaping the present and future well-being of their members. Today, family lives strongly involve digital media and digital technologies. There seems to be a disconnect between intended behaviours and the actual behaviours that people are undertaking in the digital space. The intention-behaviour gap is a phenomenon that has been studied extensively in the health psychology literature. However, media psychology has paid little attention to a potential intention-behaviour gap in the context of digital behaviours, which today represent a large proportion of daily behaviours. Media and communication scholars and psychological and behavioural scientists seem to work in isolation. The goal is to bridge the disciplines by developing behaviour change literacy as a new concept and validating its promise to explain the intention-behaviour gap for parental mediation. Behaviour change literacy should help scholars, policymakers and educators to understand the intention-behaviour gap in modern digitalised lives better and to develop more effective interventions that empower people to establish and maintain beneficial behaviours by teaching citizens behaviour change literacy.

 Supervisors: Ellen Helsper and Dario Krpan

Biography

Paul's academic training is in management, economics, communication, and media. Before starting the PhD, Paul obtained a BA in Corporate Management and Economics in his native country Germany from the Zeppelin University. Afterwards, he completed a MA in Communication Studies (summa cum laude) with a focus on New Media and Internet at the Catholic University of Portugal. His studies are supported by Germany's most prestigious and selective scholarship foundation, the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.

His professional expertise is grounded in his work as a consultant, coach, analyst, and evaluator. As a change management consultant, Paul was providing various services to major DAX30 companies (such as BMW), including organizing, designing, and conducting smaller-scale workshops and large-scale events around topics like corporate culture and leadership as well as collecting and analysing various types of data and synthesizing key findings, such as from in-depth interviews of multiple stakeholders. Later, Paul worked as a data analyst and project evaluator in a consultancy for major international non-profit organisations (such as Save The Children), contributing to the design and improvement of qualitative and quantitative data collection tools, the analysis of large qualitative and quantitative data sets, and the synthesis of key data-based findings and lessons into concise action-informing reports. As a certified positive psychology coach, Paul is currently facilitating his clients' self-determined goals for positive change in their lives, work, relationships, and well-being.