Background: The Transtheoretical Model supports that readiness to change should predict actual substance-related behavior change. This relationship is surprisingly modest. Across several behavioral domains, individuals tend to have unrealistic expectations regarding the amount of effort and time required to successfully change one's behaviors, dubbed the False Hope Syndrome. Objectives: Based on False Hope Syndrome, we expect the standard method of measuring self-reported readiness to change is overestimated. To test this hypothesis, we experimentally manipulated level of cognitive effort prior to completing readiness to change measures. College students from a large southwestern university who reported using substances in the past 30 days (n = 345) were recruited from a psychology department participant pool and randomized to one of three conditions: 1) standard, low effort condition, 2) medium effort condition (selected likes/dislikes of substance use and negative consequences of changing one's use), and 3) high effort condition (also provided written responses to how they would handle difficult situations related to changing their substance use). We conducted one-way ANOVAs with Tukey post-hoc comparisons to examine differences on three measures of readiness to change: the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) scale as well as readiness and motivation rulers. Results: Contrary to our hypothesis, all significant statistical tests supported higher cognitive effort conditions reporting higher readiness to change. Although effect sizes were modest, higher cognitive effort appeared to increase self-reported readiness to change substance use. Conclusions: Additional work is needed to test how self-reported readiness to change relates to actual behavior change when assessed under the different effort conditions.
Keywords: Readiness to change; alcohol use; cannabis use; substance use.