Nelli Hankonen

I am professor of social psychology and the director of the Behaviour Change and Wellbeing research group. My 
research focuses on motivation, behaviour change, interaction and behavioural public policy. I have led several 
intervention research projects with mixed-methods development and evaluation designs, as well as projects 
with systematic review, meta-analytical and expert consensus methodologies. Recent years have focused on 
taking a new paradigmatic lens – that of complex systems – on behaviour change science. 

 

My research interests include the following topics:

• Motivational interaction: Changing motivational behaviours of professionals
• Behaviour change science
• Agentic change processes: Self-enactable behaviour change techniques
• Intervention development & fidelity
• Innovative intervention process evaluation methodologies
• Behavioural public policy
• Emerging connections between complexity science and behaviour change science

Editorial/Reviewing Activities and Scientific Evaluations (selection)

2020–              Editorial Board Member, Annals of Behavioral Medicine

2018–2023    Editorial Board Member, Health Psychology Review

2016–              Review Editor, Frontiers in Psychology (Social and Personality Psychology Section)

2017–2020    Associate Editor, Applied Psychology: Health & Well-being

Membership and positions of trust in scientific communities (selection)

2015–18         Executive committee member and National Editor, Practical Health Psychology Blog (EHPS); Advisory committee member 2018–

2014–19              National delegate for Finland, European Health Psychology Society

2014–              Member of the executive board, Finnish Psychological Society (SPS)

2012–2017    Member and President (2013–16) of board, Section for Health Psychology, Finnish Psychological Society (SPS)

2008–2012    (Vice) Member of the board Section of Behavioral Medicine (Finnish Society for Social Medicine)

2008–2009    Member of the executive committee, CREATE – Collaborative Research and Training in the EHPS    

Some of my projects include:

• The Let’s Move It intervention study, as of 2013-, focused on influences on adolescents' physical activity and sedentary behaviours, and how to build an effective intervention to be implemented in vocational schools. 
  Out of this project came tens of studies, theses and intervention strategies. This research covered the entire cycle from intervention development and formative studies, piloting and feasibility, RCT, as well as national implementation and dissemination. Several of the developed interventions are still used nationally in the Finnish educational system, and have been adopted in other interventions as well.
• MotiStyleSport & national implementation with comparison arm design, 2020-2025. This project grew from the Let's Move It study: It was apparent that how people are met in interventions, plays a huge role, and school staff was excited particularly about the motivating interaction style trainings that we offered. Therefore, we moved to examine: How can health and physical activity promotion professionals learn more motivating interaction styles – and unlearn demotivating, pressuring styles?
  • For example, we used behaviour change science, including habit theory, to create hopefully more effective trainings for the professionals.
• InCharge study 2015-: This project arose from a question I posed during my PhD to Dr Wendy Hardeman, when we investigated the Addition-Plus data on what people did to change their lifestyle successfully. What does it mean when people say they tried to motivate themselves? This Academy of Finland -funded project compiled various self-enactable strategies for motivation and behaviour change: what people can proactively do to motivate themselves and regulate their actions. 
  • We also examined in a controlled design, whether people can be taught to use strategies to fulfill their basic psychological needs at work, to ensure high-quality work motivation. The preliminary answer is - no.
• Behavioural public policy training: Training intervention
• Type 2 diabetes prevention - Ikihyvä group counseling in 2006-11: I started my research career examining socioeconomic and gender differences in life-style intervention trial – did not use the term intersectionality, but it sure was different to be a low-educated woman trying to change their lifestyle than lower-educated man. According to my dissertation, the psychosocial mechanisms of change are similar, but harder to reach in more disadvantaged positions. Socioeconomic discrepancies in health and wellbeing are still close to my heart.
• Among my favorite cross-cutting topics are:
  • Evaluating processes and mechanisms of change, different methodologies 
  • Development of behaviour change interventions, using theory, evidence, and stakeholder collaboration.

Hankonen, N. (2021) Participants’ enactment of behavior change techniques: A call for increased focus on what people do to manage their motivation and behaviour. Health Psychology Review 15 (2), 185-194.

Martela, F., Hankonen, N., Vansteenkiste, M. & Ryan, R. (2021) Fostering Voluntary Compliance for Effective Emergency Response and Sustainable Crisis Management: Principles for Motivating Communication of Behavioural Restrictions and Guidelines Based on Self-Determination Theory. European Review of Social Psychology 32 (2), 305-347. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2020.1857082 

Hagger, M., Cameron, L., Hankonen, N., Hamilton, K., & Lintunen, T. (Eds.) (2020). The Handbook of Behaviour Change. Cambridge University Press. 

Renko, E., Knittle, K. P., Palsola, M., Lintunen, T., & Hankonen, N. (2020) Acceptability, reach and implementation of a training intervention to enhance teachers' skills in physical activity promotion. BMC Public Health, 20, 1568. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09653-x 

Knittle, K., Heino, M. T. J., Marques, M., Stenius, M., Beattie, M., Ehbrecht, F., Hagger, M. S., Hankonen, N. (2020) The compendium of self-enactable techniques to change and self-manage motivation and behaviour (v1. 0). Nature Human Behaviour. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0798-9 

Kostamo, K., Jallinoja, P., Vesala, K, Araujo-Soares, V Sniehotta, F., Hankonen, N. (2019) Using the critical incident technique for qualitative process evaluation of interventions: The example of the "Let's Move It" trial. Social Science & Medicine 232, 389-397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.05.014 

Seppälä, T., Hankonen, N., Korkiakangas, E., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2017). National policies for the promotion of physical activity and healthy nutrition in the workplace context: a Behaviour Change Wheel guided content analysis of policy papers in Finland. BMC Public Health, 18(1), 87. doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4574-3

Stenius, M., Hankonen, N., Haukkala, A., & Ravaja, N. (2016). Why share expertise? A closer look at the quality of motivation to share or withhold knowledge. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(2), 181-198.

Hankonen, N., Sutton, S., Prevost, A. T., Simmons, R. K., Griffin, S. J., Kinmonth, A. L., & Hardeman, W. (2015). Which behavior change techniques are associated with changes in physical activity, diet and body mass index in people with recently diagnosed diabetes? Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 49(1), 7-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-014-9624-9 

Hankonen, N., Absetz, P., Kinnunen, M., Haukkala, A. & Jallinoja, P. (2013). Toward identifying a broader range of social cognitive determinants of dietary intentions and behaviour. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 5(1), 118-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2012.01081.x