The Psychology of Habits: How They Form and How to Break Them

7/15/20

The psychology of habits: How they form and how to break them

Dr Robert Whelan

Lecture outline

• How are habits learned? • Everyday habits • When habits are maladaptive – Addiction • Breaking habits

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HABIT FORMATION

• Wood et al. 2002: People recorded once per hour what they were thinking, feeling, & doing • 43% of actions were performed almost daily and usually in the same context – Eating certain foods in same locations – Often no conscious thoughts of the action • Popcorn at a movie • Cigarette with coffee

Everyday examples

• Participants rated movie trailers • Given a free drink and box of popcorn • Unbeknown to them, popcorn was either fresh or 7 days old and ‘decidedly stale’ • Those who occasionally ate popcorn liked the stale popcorn less than the fresh and ate less of it • However, participants who habitually ate popcorn at the cinema: – they liked it less, but they ate just as much as if they had been given fresh popcorn

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Habits • Learned automatic responses with specific features • a) activation by recurring context cues and • (b) insensitivity to short-term changes in goals (a.k.a., not goal dependent)

• Habits are learned • Learning is a process by which experience produces a relative and adaptive change in the capacity for behaviour • Organisms must learn – Which events are important to survival – If responses will have positive or negative consequences

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Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association

Ivan Pavlov

Conditioning Trial:

Salivation

Test Trial: Salivation

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Little Albert (JB Watson)

Complex Learning

• Why do we learn new behaviors? • Classical conditioning only deals with reflex responses that we already possess • Most of our behaviors are stimulated by something in our environment • Operant Conditioning • Defined as - the form of learning concerned with changes in emitted responses as a function of their consequences

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Origins of Operant Conditioning

• Edward Thorndike • Instrumental Conditioning • “Law of Effect” – Satisfying outcome – Unsatisfactory outcome

B. F. Skinner

• Skinner coined the term “operant”. • Disagreed with the “soft” concepts of Thorndike’s “satisfying” and “unsatisfactory” outcome(s)

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Inventor

l Cumulative Recorder

l Operant Conditioning Chamber (“Skinner Box”)

l Air Crib

l Teaching Machine

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Skinner vs. Watson & Pavlov

l Watson and the Pavlov à environment important because it elicited behaviour

l Skinner à environment important because it selected behaviour

l Reinforcement contingencies the environment provides determine which behaviours are strengthened

Reinforcment • Primary reinforcers – food, water, shelter – innate biological needs • Secondary reinforcers – Conditioned reinforcers – something that will provide a primary reinforcer • money, poker chips etc.

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Desired change in behavior

Type of reinforcer Increases response Decrease response

Positive reinforcer POSITIVE OMISSION REINFORCEMENT (withholding positive reinforcer)

Negative reinforcer NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT REINFORCEMENT (escape, avoidance)

Schedules of Reinforcement • Continuous reinforcement - every response is followed by a reinforcer • Partial reinforcement – only some responses get reinforcers

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Habits vs. goals

• Habits and goals are driven by different types of reward learning • Goal-directed – Computationally demanding mental planning • Habits – Computationally undemanding but inflexible – Short-term reward value changes à little influence

Habit formation

• Habits often originate in goal pursuit – people are likely to repeat actions that yield desired outcomes – Goals defined a valued outcome • Habit strength is a continuum – Weak habits performed with lower frequency and/or in more variable contexts than strong habits

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Frontal Cortex Corpus Callosum Planning, Strategizing, Logic, Judgment Connects Hemispheres

Cerebellum Coordinates muscles/ movement and thinking processes

Thalamus Nucleus accumbens Ventral tegmental area Locus Extended Amygdala coeruleus Emotional responses: fear and anger Hippocampus Forms Memories Coordinates thinking processes 23

Reward Mechanisms in Habit Learning • Habits strengthen via reward-learning mechanisms • Unexpected rewards increase dopamine firing – ‘stamps in associations’ • These reduce over time as rewards become more predictable

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Reward Pathway

• There is a axonal network in the brain labeled the ‘reward pathway’ • This reward pathway is activated by: – Food, water and sex, activities (such as sky diving, paragliding etc) and exercise

This reward pathway is also activated by drugs and alcohol

Neurobiology of Reinforcement

• Drugs of abuse and natural reinforcers produce increases in DA

1100 FOOD 1000 AMPHETAMINE 200 900 800 150 700 600 500 100 400 % of Basal Release 300 50 200 Feeding

100 Release Basal of % 0 0 0 60 120 180 0 1 2 3 4 5 hr Time After Amphetamine Time (min) Di Chiara et al.

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Characteristics of addiction.

• It is powerful: Monkeys will self-administer to death • Not everyone who uses drugs becomes addicted. – Perhaps 17% for cocaine • Addiction may have nothing to do with the pleasure/reward associated with taking the drug. – Nicotine is very addictive but not particularly rewarding • Addiction is not all about biology – Environmental effects & gene-environment interactions. – Biology is very relevant

14 ANRV346-NE31-16 ARI 14 May 2008 8:22

Dickinson 1981, Balleine & Dickinson 1998, relation to a current or future goal but rather in Colwill & Rescorla 1985). In the initial stages relation to a previous goal and the antecedent of habit learning, behaviors are not automatic. behavior that most successfully led to achieving7/15/20 A-O: action-outcome They are goal directed, as in an animal work- that goal. ing to obtain a food reward. But with extended The central finding from lesion work based training or training with interval schedules of on the reward-devaluation paradigm is that the reward, animals typically come to perform the transition from goal-oriented A-O to habitual behaviors repeatedly, on cue, even if the value S-R modes of behavior involves transitions in of the reward to be received is reduced so that the neural circuits predominantly controlling it is no longer rewarding (for example, if the the behaviors (Figure 2). Specifically, experi- animal is tested when it is sated or if its food re- ments suggest that different regions of the pre- ward has been repetitively paired with a noxious frontal cortex, the striatum, and the amygdala outcome). Dickinson defined the goal-oriented, and other limbic sites critically influence these purposeful, nonhabitual behaviors as action- two different behavioral modes. outcome (A-O) behaviors and labeled the ha- In rats, lesions in either the sensorimo- bitual behaviors occurring despite reward de- tor striatum (dorsolateral caudoputamen) or Habits in thevaluation brain as S-R behaviors. Thus, in addition the infralimbic prefrontal cortex reduce the to habits being learned, repetitive, sequential, insensitivity to reward devaluation that de- context-triggered behaviors, habits can be de- fines habitual behavior in this paradigm. With • Goals: medial prefrontal cortexfined experimentally as being performed not in such lesions, the animals exhibit sensitivity to

and the posterior dorsomedial SMA Sensorimotor Associative striatum Limbic CP ACC VS • Habits: anterior dorsolateral MI SI Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2008.31:359-387. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org striatum (aDLS)/putamen in Access provided by University College Dublin (UCD) on 02/26/16. For personal use only.

OFC humans CN • As habits develop, brain activity P

VS moves from goal-regions to VS

habit-regions Figure 2 Dynamic shifts in activity in cortical and striatal regions as habits and procedures are learned. Sensorimotor, associative, and limbic regions of the frontal cortex (medial and lateral views) and striatum (single hemisphere) are shown for the monkey (left), and corresponding striatal regions are indicated for the rat (right). These functional designations are only approximate and are shown in highly schematic form. ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; CN, caudate nucleus; CP, caudoputamen; MI, primary motor cortex; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; P, putamen; SI, primary somatosensory cortex; SMA, supplementary motor area; 29 VS, ventral striatum.

www.annualreviews.org Habits, Rituals, and the Evaluative Brain 363 •

566 Addiction

Figure 2 outcome (intravenously self-administered drug) that is reinforced

only after completion of the first ratio after each interval has elapsed.

Such schedules, therefore, facilitate the development of S-R control

Goal-directed behaviour

over instrumental responding. In addition, it has been shown that

omission of CS presentation in second-order schedules of reinfor-

cement disrupts cocaine seeking more than food seeking behavior

• Habits could erall population

Ov [55], suggesting that prolonged psychostimulant drug seeking is

particularly dependent upon conditioned reinforcement. Thus,

be the instrumental responding during the first interval of a second-order

schedule of reinforcement shows face and construct validity with

eational drug u regards to the behavioral features of drug seeking in humans:

building Recr sers

ation stimulus-bound, somewhat dissociated from the unconditioned

sitis

en effects of the drug and persistent. e s nic drug u blocks of drug tiv hro ser

n C s

e Second-order schedules of cocaine and heroin self-administration c esses

n roc

I P t H were first used by Goldberg and colleagues in non-human primates n a e b addiction ug abuse

n r rs

o D it to assess the influence of environmental stimuli upon drug self-

p s

p add administration. They were subsequently developed in rats by Everitt rug icts

O D

and colleagues [56,57]. In the first studies, rats were initially required

to learn to self-administer cocaine under continuous reinforcement,

Inc ts

entive Habi that is, FR1. After stabilization of responding (5–7 daily 2 hours

sessions), a second-order schedule with fixed ratio components of

Compulsivity the type FRx(FRy:S) was introduced, with initial values of x and y set

Current Opinion in Neurobiology to 1, so that each active lever press resulted in the presentation of

the CS and the delivery of 0.25 mg of cocaine. Then x and y values

were progressively increased with increments in response require-

30 Bridging aberrant motivation to habits: incentive habits, a necessary

ments starting with x, that is, FR5(FR1:S) and FR10(FR1:S), then y,

step towards compulsivity? Exposure to addictive drugs triggers within

that is, FR10(FR2:S), FR10(FR4:S), FR10(FR7:S) and FR10(FR10:S).

and between systems adaptations that may generate aberrant

After responding became stable under this FR10(FR10:S) schedule

motivations through incentive sensitization [3] and opponent process-

of reinforcement, which therefore requires 100 active lever presses

dependent hedonic allostasis [10]. Thus increased motivation for a drug

and 10 one-second presentations of the CS to obtain a cocaine

and away from the aversive properties of withdrawal contributes to the

infusion, a final overall fixed interval schedule FI15(FR10:S) was

aberrant overwhelming drive towards the drug in addicted individuals.

introduced such that a cocaine infusion was delivered only following

The neurobiological adaptations to repeated exposure to addictive

the tenth active lever press15that occurred when the 15-min interval

drugs also facilitate a shift from goal-directed actions to automatic, rigid

had elapsed. Finally rats were allowed to perform cocaine seeking

instrumental response, habits. We postulate that the abnormal coupling

behavior under this schedule for ten days. This acquisition procedure

of drug-induced aberrant motivational processes and habits, in an

produces robust and stable rates of responding that depend critically

‘incentive habit process’, contributes to the implicit initiation and

on presentation of the cocaine-associated conditioned reinforcer.

maintenance of habitual drug seeking responses. Such a process may

The procedure has been used extensively to probe the neural

facilitate the transition to compulsivity, the hallmark of addiction.

mechanisms involved in the acquisition and the performance of

cocaine-seeking. However, it does not open a direct window on the

potency of the conditioned stimulus, presented contingently, to

enhance instrumental responding. It is, therefore, possible to

Box 1 Second-order schedules of reinforcement: insights into decrease the acquisition period to 11 days by introducing overall

cue-controlled drug seeking behaviors interval schedules of reinforcement from the outset. In this case the

training phase consists of three to five days of FR1 training in 2 hour

Drug addiction does not involve only taking drugs, drug addicts daily sessions of 30 infusions (0.25 mg cocaine/infusion) followed by

spend most of their time foraging for the drug. It is, therefore, the introduction of interval schedules, with daily increments: FI1 min,

important to dissociate drug taking from drug seeking. Additionally, FI2 min, FI4 min, FI8 min, FI10 min, FI15 min. After three days of

drug addicts forage for their drug under the control of stimuli in the training under the FI15 schedule, contingent presentations of the CS

environment acting as conditioned reinforcers that support long are introduced under a FR10 schedule such that rats are now trained

sequences of behavior in the absence of the outcome. More under a FI15(FR10:S) second-order schedule of reinforcement. This

formally, conditioned reinforcers are stimuli that have themselves acquisition procedure provides a direct measure of the potentiation

acquired rewarding properties after repeated associations with of responding during interval schedules by the contingent presen-

unconditioned rewards. Therefore, in trying to separate drug seeking tation of the CS since they are introduced only once responding

from drug taking, schedules of reinforcement must be implemented under the fixed interval has stabilized.

in which operant responding for the drug during the drug seeking

phase is not affected by the drug itself, that is, so that drug seeking

behavior can be measured without interference by stimulant or

sedative actions of the self-administered drug but instead by

[27], including the amygdala and ventral striatum but also

contingent presentations of conditioned stimuli.

brain regions associated with ‘action knowledge’ [28,29]

In second-order schedules of reinforcement, the CS is presented

suggesting that drug-associated stimuli directly trigger

response-contingently usually under a fixed ratio schedule, during an

well-established action schemata.

overall fixed interval or fixed ratio schedule for the primary reinforcer,

and markedly enhances and maintains responding for long periods

of time. Thus, under a second-order schedule of reinforcement, a From actions to habits: a shift in

strong contingency exists between the instrumental response and corticostriatal networks

the presentation of the CS (under a fixed ratio), but a relatively

Goal-directed actions (A-O) and habits (S-R), operation-

weaker contingency between instrumental performance and the

ally deﬁned respectively as sensitive or resistant to

Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2013, 23:564–572 www.sciencedirect.com 7/15/20

Modulators of habit • Stress – incl. withdrawal stress • Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT) – A conditioned stimulus (CS) exerts motivational influences on the expression of instrumental behaviour.

HOW CAN HABITS BE CHANGED?

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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

Journal of Consumer Psychology 19 (2009) 579–592

The habitual consumer

Wendy Wood, David T. Neal

Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 3620 South McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061, USA Received 9 June 2009; revised 15 July 2009; accepted 12 August 2009 Available online 2 October 2009

Abstract • Consumers sometimes act like creatures of habit, automatically repeating past behavior with little regard to current goals and valued outcomes. ConsumersTo explain this phenomenon, wetend show that habits to are a specificbuy form of the automaticity same in which responses arebrands directly cued by the contextsof (e.g., locations, preceding actions) that consistently covaried with past performance. Habits are prepotent responses that are quick to activate in memory over alternatives and that have a slow-to-modify memory trace. In daily life, the tendency to act on habits is compounded by everyday demands, productsincluding time pressures, across distraction, and self-control different depletion. However, habitsshopping are not immune to deliberative episodes processes. Habits are learned largely as people pursue goals in daily life, and habits are broken through the strategic deployment of effortful self-control. Also, habits influence the post hoc inferences that people make about their behavior. • © 2009 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. PurchaseKeywords: Habit; Automaticity; the Goals; Self-control;same Consumer behavioramounts at a given retail

storeThe habitual across consumer repeat visits This scenario captures an essential component of habits as they play out in everyday life. When people frequently have Picture yourself sitting at your local cinema as the lights go performed a response in particular contexts, the context can down, a box of popcorn in hand. A short while later, and most of come to trigger the response directly in the sense that it does • Eatthe boxsimilar might be eaten. Whattypes drives this behavior? of Itfoods would be not at require a supporting meal goals and across intentions (Neal, Wood,days & reasonable to think of popcorn's taste and other qualities. But the Quinn, 2006; Wood & Neal, 2007). Thus, when sitting in a results of a recent field study challenge this explanation, at least theater watching movie trailers, viewers with a habitual pattern when habits are guiding behavior (Neal, Wood, Lally, & Wu, of past consumption will eat popcorn, even when they find it 2009). Participants in the study rated a series of movie trailers decidedly unappetizing. before the feature film at a campus cinema and were given a free Research on habits is important for consumer behavior drink and box of popcorn. Unbeknown to them, the popcorn was because repetition is a central feature of daily life. About 45% of either fresh or 7 days old and decidedly stale (a manipulation people's behavior is repeated almost daily and usually in the based on Wansink and Kim, 2005). Participants who only same context (Quinn & Wood, 2005; Wood, Quinn, & Kashy, occasionally ate popcorn liked the stale popcorn less than the 2002). Purchase and consumption are similarly repetitious. fresh and ate less of it. However, participants who habitually ate Consumers tend to buy the same brands of products across 33 popcorn at the cinema were a different story—when they were different shopping episodes (e.g., Seetharaman, 2004), purchase given stale popcorn, they liked it less, but they ate just as much as the same amounts at a given retail store across repeat visits if they had been given fresh popcorn. Moreover, their habits (Vogel, Evanschitzky, & Ramaseshan, 2008), and eat similar were apparent only in the cinema context. When the study was types of foods at a meal across days (e.g., Khare & Inman, 2006). replicated using a show of music videos in a campus meeting Moreover, understanding of repeated consumer behavior is room, habitual eaters reacted much like non-habitual eaters-they significant for brand and financial reasons. Increases in repeated ate significantly less stale than fresh popcorn. purchase and consumption are linked with increases in market share of a brand, customer lifetime value, and share of wallet (e.g., Ehrenberg & Goodhardt, 2002; Wirtz, Mattila, & Lwin, E-mail address: [email protected] (W. Wood). 2007). Thus, repetition, and more specifically habits, may

• Triandis (1977): people report their intentions to perform some behavior in the next week & the strength of their habits – People with weak or no habits act on their intentions – people with strong habits continue to respond at past performance levels regardless of their intentions

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Habit change • Once habits have formed, repeated experiences across multiple occasions are needed to alter old habit memories and develop new ones • Habit performance can be reinstated easily after people act in counter-habitual ways • Standard interventions that change people's beliefs, self-efficacy judgments, and intentions may not change behavior performance

Does Changing Behavioral Intentions Engender Behavior Change? A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence

Thomas L. Webb Paschal Sheeran The University of Manchester The University of Sheffield

Numerous theories in social and health psychology assume that intentions cause behaviors. However, most tests of the intention–behavior relation involve correlational studies that preclude causal inferences. • CorrespondingIn order to determine changes whether changes in behavioral in intention behavior engender behavior change, participantsonly for should be assigned randomly to a treatment that significantly increases the strength of respective intentions relative to a control condition, and differences in subsequent behavior should be compared. non-habitsThe present research obtained 47 experimental tests of intention–behavior relations that satisfied these criteria. Meta-analysis showed that a medium-to-large change in intention (d ϭ 0.66) leads to a small-to-medium change in behavior (d ϭ 0.36). The review also identified several conceptual factors, – desire tomethodological get flu features, shot and intervention vs. characteristics actually that moderate intention–behavior getting consistency. flu shot Keywords: intention, behavior change, intervention, meta-analysis – Not for habits: desire to eat healthfully vs. actual Intentions are self-instructions to perform particular behaviors or to theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991; Ajzen & Madden, obtain certain outcomes (Triandis, 1980) and are usually measured by 1986), and the model of interpersonal behavior (Triandis, 1977, dietendorsement of items such as “I intend to do X!” Forming a behav- 1980) each accord intentions a key role in the prediction of ioral or goal intention signals the end of the deliberation about what behavior. An important impetus for the development of these one will do and indicates how hard one is prepared to try, or how models was a review by Wicker (1969) that showed that general much effort one will exert, in order to achieve desired outcomes attitudes (e.g., X is good/bad) only weakly predicted specific (Ajzen, 1991; Gollwitzer, 1990; Webb & Sheeran, 2005). Intentions behaviors. Models of attitude–behavior relations attempted to ex- thus are assumed to capture the motivational factors that influence a plain this attitude–behavior discrepancy by pointing to the impor- behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Theories of attitude–behavior relations, mod- tance of measuring attitudes and behavior at the same level of els of health behavior, and goal theories all converge on the idea that specificity and by elucidating how attitudes combine with other intention is the key determinant of behavior (summaries by Abraham, factors to influence behavior. For instance, the theory of reasoned Sheeran, & Johnston, 1998; Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Conner & action (TRA; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) proposes that two addi- Norman, 1996; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, tional constructs are needed to explain the relationship between 1996; Maddux, 1999). However, reviews of intention–behavior rela- attitude and behavior. First, a favorable attitude toward a behavior tions to date have relied on correlational evidence and do not afford might not be translated into action because of social pressure from clear conclusions about whether intentions have a causal impact on significant others not to perform the behavior. The theory therefore behavior. The present review integrates for the first time experimental suggests that measures of subjective norm (e.g., Most people who studies that manipulate intention and subsequently followup behavior. are important to me think that I should/should not do X) should be In so doing, the review quantifies the extent to which changes in taken alongside attitude measures in order to capture both social 36 intention lead to changes in behavior across studies. and personal influences on behavior. Second, Fishbein and Ajzen The Role of Intention in Theories of Social suggested that attitudes and subjective norms affect behavior by promoting the formation of a decision or intention to act. That is, and Health Behaviors the TRA proposes that behavioral intention is the proximal deter- Models of attitude–behavior relations such as the theory of minant of behavior and mediates the influence of both the theory’s reasoned action (Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), the predictors (attitude and subjective norm) and external variables (e.g., personality and demographic characteristics). Thus, accord- Thomas L. Webb, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of ing to the TRA, intention is the most immediate and important Manchester; Paschal Sheeran, Department of Psychology, The University predictor of behavior. of Sheffield. The TRA was designed to predict volitional behaviors, or be- We thank Amanda Rivis and Vikkie Buxton for coding the study haviors over which the individual has a good deal of control. 18 characteristics, Paul Norman and Richard Cooke for coding assessed However, many behaviors require resources, skills, opportunities, control, and Gaston Godin and Ian Kellar for providing considerable or cooperation to be performed successfully (Liska, 1984). Con- additional information about their research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to sequently, a person may not (a) intend to perform a behavior unless Thomas L. Webb, School of Psychological Sciences, The University of the behavioral performance is perceived as under personal control Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. or (b) enact their behavioral intention successfully unless they E-mail: [email protected] possess actual control over the behavior. To take account of these

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Habit change

• One dinner has little impact on overall health • Driving to work on a particular morning contributes minimally to traffic congestion • As everyday behaviors are repeated – cumulative impact on medical, social, and economic outcomes • Large societal change if people – Eat slightly less food – Reduce non-essential car journeys

Information campaigns

• Policy interventions à information campaigns – Daily food intake guidelines à various pyramid shapes, 5 fruits & vegetables daily etc.

• Information campaigns don’t often work • Meta-analysis of 110 reports of the effectiveness of media interventions to curb substance abuse – Substance abuse increased although attitudes became more negative

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Environmental cues • Automatic responding that develops as people repeat actions in stable circumstances • As people repeat actions, decision making recedes, and the actions come to be cued by the environment – Environment trigger habitual responses directly without input from intentions • Disrupting environmental cues renders habits open to change

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Changing environment

• People’s attempts to change behavior – 36% of of their successful change attempts involved moving to a new location – 13% of unsuccessful attempts involved moving • Context change disrupted automatic actions • College students transferring to new university – Exercise intentions aligned more with actions • Provide new city residents with a free bus pass

Changing habits: policies • ‘Sin’ taxes: Cigarettes, sugary drinks

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Contingency management • Can change habits by providing rewards for alternative behaviour – Voucher-based treatment • Points accumulate for submission of drug-negative samples • Points start out very low and can be exchanged for merchandise at any time – Points for the first clean sample were worth $2.50 – and each subsequent sample was worth $1.50 more – 1 Month: Each drug-negative sample was worth $16.50.

22 Health Psychology Review S141

Habit formation, tracked using an automaticity-specific subscale of the SRHI, was found to typically follow an asymptotic curve (see Figure 1): initial repetitions caused large increases in automaticity, but with each new repetition, automaticity gains reduced until the behaviour reached its limit of automaticity (for similar findings from the animal learning literature, see e.g., Adams, 1982 and Dickinson, 1985). These findings suggest that interventions should aim to promote sufficient context- dependent repetition of the behaviour for the asymptote to be reached, and with as few repetitions as possible. Some self-help programmes have claimed that it takes 21 days to form a habit (e.g., Maltz, 1969) but it is generally agreed among researchers that habit formation is a slower process than this (Redish, Jensen, & Johnson, 2008; Rothman et al., 2009). Lally et al. (2010) found the average time for participants to reach the asymptote of automaticity was 66 days, with a range of 18Á254 days (possible explanations for this variability are discussed below).

Translating intention into behaviour: Planning Intentions to act are significant precursors of initiation of behaviour, but ‘intention- translation’ is imperfect (Sheeran, 2002; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). A review of studies across a number of health-related behaviours showed that among those who intended to perform these behaviours, the average rates of performance were only 47% (Sheeran, 2002). This ‘intentionÁbehaviour gap’ may be partly attributed to features 7/15/20 of the motivation to perform the behaviour. For example, the salience, priority, strength and stability of intentions all influence whether a person who forms an intention to take a certain action remains disposed to do so at a later time when a performance opportunity arises (Bagozzi & Yi, 1989; Sheeran, Orbell, & Trafimow, 1999). In this paper we focus on a second class of reasons that can explain why people fail to act on their intentions. These ‘volitional’ (or ‘post-intentional’) factors are conceptually independent of motivation and relate to the ability to put plans into action (Schwarzer, 1992). Remembering to perform a previously planned (intended) action has been termed a prospective memory task, and such tasks are ubiquitous in daily life (Einstein &

How to form goodDownloaded by [University College London] at 07:00 30 May 2013 habits

1. A decision must be made to take action à intention Figure 1. Habit formation following an asymptotic curve. 2. The decision to act must be translated into action. 3. The behaviour must be repeated 4. The new action must be repeated in a fashion conducive to the development of automaticity.

Time pressure

• Participants in a travel simulation: – given varying amounts of time to take a new subway route that differed from their habitual one – Unlimited à participants followed the new route with few errors of relapse to the old habit – Under time pressure à Habit slips

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Conclusion

• How are habits learned? • Everyday habits • When habits are maladaptive – Addiction • Changing habits