The Role of Feedback in the Process of Health Behavior Change

To offer a taxonomy of types of feedback and describe potential mechanisms of action particularly in the area of addictive behaviors.Reviewed the literature to examine support for types-Generic, Targeted, and Personalized-and for mechanisms of feedback.Although it is not clear how it works, feedback is thought to offer important information, to create a sense of caring and helping relationship, to reach more directly decisional considerations, to increase engagement in the materials, to increase motivation, or to provide social comparison and norms.Avenues for future research in search of the most effective manner of using feedback to promote health behavior change are discussed.