Glossary
Information about emotional consequences
What is information about emotional consequences?
Information about emotional consequences describes how performing a behavior may affect feelings or emotional health.
Emotional information vs. emotional monitoring
The information must be accurate for the behavior and population discussed. This technique differs from asking someone to monitor their own feelings after acting, and from trying to induce anticipated regret.
Illustrative example
A program discussing charitable giving could describe Dunn and colleagues’ 2008 experiment: 46 participants received money to spend on themselves or others, and the latter group reported greater happiness later that day, with initial happiness taken into account. The communicated consequence is the giver’s reported happiness, not the amount the recipient received.
That small study is not a promise of happiness. A 2022 replication report found no significant difference using the original analysis, although an additional happiness measure favored spending on others. An accurate message should include that uncertainty. Asking people to record their own mood after giving would instead involve self-monitoring.
Why it matters
The original BCT Taxonomy v1 definitions identify this as technique 5.6. How an activity feels is a legitimate part of deciding whether to do it. But information about feelings is still information; it does not make the activity enjoyable or remove the effort required.