![change_s](https://www.therelationshipblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/change_s.jpg)
The Five Stages of Change model of behavior, originally developed in the 1970s to better understand how smokers might give up their addiction to cigarettes (Prochaska & DiClemente*), is based on the assumption that behavioral change does not take place in one step or at one time, but is rather a process involving progress through a series of distinct, predictable stages.