If applied to dietary change, the PMT would make the following predictions: information about the role of a high fat diet in coronary heart disease would increase fear, increase the individual’s perception of how serious coronary heart disease was (perceived severity), and increase their belief that they were likely to have a heart attack (perceived susceptibility/susceptibility). If the individual also felt confident that they could change their diet (self-efficacy) and that this change would have beneficial consequences (response effectiveness), they would reporthigh intentions to change their behaviour (behavioural intentions). This would be seenas an adaptive coping response to the information.