Introduction: Individual health behaviors affect both personal health and planetary sustainability. Environmental stress can disrupt rational trade-offs between personal health and ecological concerns, while interventions may recalibrate decision processes. Prior work shows that stress impairs reflective control and amplifies impulsivity, whereas targeted training can restore self-regulation. However, little empirical evidence has examined how Regulation of Craving Training (ROC-T) can simultaneously optimize behaviors that benefit both personal and planetary health.
Methods: Participants recruited in China (N = 103) and Germany (N = 64) were assigned to a 2×2 between-subjects design (stress: present/absent×intervention: present/absent). Stress induction and ROC-T were applied, and outcomes were analyzed using both traditional behavioral measures (two-way ANOVA) and drift-diffusion modeling (DDM).
Results: (1) Behavioral outcomes: In China, intervention significantly reduced high-calorie food selection (p < .001), with a significant stress×intervention interaction on low-calorie food reaction time (p = .041). In Germany, only stress exerted a significant main effect on negative choice reaction times (p = .01). (2) Cognitive mechanisms: Decision thresholds (a) decreased in both samples, reflecting greater decisiveness, consistent with the "stress-impairment—intervention-compensation" framework. However, drift rates (v) diverged: participants in China showed slower accumulation of health-relevant evidence under intervention (v↓), whereas participants in Germany accelerated evidence integration (v↑). Non-decision times decreased in China (enhanced efficiency) but increased in Germany (reflecting added task demands). Starting bias (z) remained stable. These divergences may relate to differences in the specific health decision tasks targeted in ROC-T (e.g., dietary choices vs. physical activity choices).
Conclusion: This study elucidates the dynamic mechanisms through which stress and intervention shape health behavior decisions, offering critical empirical support for interventions that advance both individual and planetary health.