This process is consistent with studies which have demonstrated that people are more likely to enact behaviour that is congruent with their personal goals [ 50, 51].
Public stigma (or social stigma) typically describes the endorsement of stereotypes and enacted behaviours against people with mental illness by professionals and the general population [ 2, 3].
Habits have been defined as dispositions to automatically enact behaviours in specific contexts, acquired by learning context-behaviour associations (Ouellette & Wood, 1998).
One possible determinant of successful intention-behaviour translation is efficient cognitive control, i.e. whether people can organise and direct their thinking towards enacting intended behaviour.
Complete behaviour change in which citizens are comfortable speaking up to fellow citizens may take time, but it seems as if the participants in this study have started along the path towards enacting this behaviour on a regular basis.
We further distinguished between attitudes that reflected perceived consequences, for the patient or professional, of doing the behaviour (e.g. whether a disclosure behaviour was harmful or beneficial to the patient) and "emotional attitudes" (e.g. discomfort felt by professionals whilst enacting disclosure behaviours) [ 18].
Three interacting conditions from which behaviour is likely to emerge have been defined as the COM-B system; capability (ability to enact the behaviour), motivation (mechanisms that activate or inhibit behaviour) and opportunity (environmental structures enabling behaviour) (13).
Such arguments are situated within a broader critical discourse of the 'new public health' , the prevailing approach to health promotion in Western societies in which health 'consumers' are encouraged to take responsibility for their own health by enacting healthy behaviours and avoiding health risks [ 31, 32].
Behaviours that carry high levels of intention and perceived behavioural control should produce strong motivation to actually enact the behaviour.
TPB suggests that an individual's behaviour is due to Attitude: whether the person is in favour of the behaviour; Subjective Norms: whether the person perceives that society is in favour of the behaviour, and to Perceived Behavioural Control: the extent to which the person feels able to enact the behaviour.
According to the TPB, specific behaviours can be predicted by the strength of an individual's intention to enact that behaviour.
