Important Determinants that Influence Behavior
The Four Most Powerful Determinants
These determinants are more commonly found to be the most powerful influences for
adopting health and nutrition behaviors and should be explored by conducting formative
research (for example, barrier analysis, doer/non-doer surveys or focus group
discussions).
1. Perceived self-efficacy/skills
 An individual’s belief that he or she can do a particular behavior given his or
her current knowledge and skills
The set of knowledge, skills, abilities and confidence necessary to perform a
particular behavior
2. Perceived social norms
 The perception that people important to an individual think that he or she
should do the behavior
 There are two parts: who matters most to the person on a particular issue,
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and what he or she perceives those people think he or she should do
3. Perceived positive consequences
 What positive things a person thinks will happen as a result of performing a
behavior, for example improved health or an unrelated benefit such as saving
money or time
4. Perceived negative consequences
 What negative things a person thinks will happen as a result of performing a
behavior
Other Key Determinants
5. Access
 The availability to a particular audience of the needed supplies and
equipment (for example, insecticide-treated bednets or condoms) or
services ( for example immunization services) required to adopt a given
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behavior
Availability includes an audience’s comfort in accessing desired types of
supplies or using a service and also issues related to cost,gender, culture,
language, etc.
6. Cues for action/reminders
 The presence of reminders that help a person remember to do a particular
behavior or remember the steps involved in doing the behavior, for example
pictorial instructions on how to prepare
7. Perceived susceptibility/risk
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A person’s perception of how vulnerable they feel to the problem, for
example, do people feel that it is possible for people to become HIV
positive?
8. Perceived severity
 A person’s perception that the problem which the behavior can prevent is
serious, for example, a mother may be more likely to take her child for
immunizations if she believes that measles is a serious disease.
9. Perceived action efficacy
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12.
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The belief that by practicing the behavior one will avoid the problem, that
the behavior is effective in avoiding the problem, for example, if children
are vaccinated, they will thrive.
Perceived divine will
A person’s belief that it is God’s will (or the gods’ will) for him or her to have
the problem or to overcome it or that God (or the gods) is in favor of the
behavior
Policy
Laws and regulations that affect behaviors and access to products and
services, for example, the presence of good land title laws (and a clear land
title) may make it more likely for a person to take steps to improve his or
her farm land.
Culture
The set of history, customs, lifestyles, values and practices within a selfdefined group that make it more or less likely that a person will adopt the
new behavior
May be associated with ethnicity, lifestyle, or gender roles