habits

Question 1

why do some researchers not study habits

Answer 1

bias towards agentic accounts of behaviour

people want to think they are in control

study showed people thought they decided to drink coffee, in reality it is habit - caused by cue response (Mazar and Wood, 2022)

Question 2

define habits

Answer 2

Strong associations (in memory) between contexts and responses that have developed through repetition

Relatively automatic responses to contexts that are insensitive to changes in the value or contingency of response outcomes

Question 3

can not doing something be a habit

Answer 3

depends on circumstance and opportunity

e.g. someone how never runs - is it habit to not run

a) never plans to run = not habit

b) plans to run but never goes = habit = avoid the activity when the time to run comes around, this is a habit

Question 4

should habits only be equated with frequency of occurrence

Answer 4

no

instead consider as mental construct involving features of automaticity, such as lack of awareness, mental efficiency, and being difficult to control

Question 5

evidence of habits: strong associations between contexts and responses - habitual food study

Answer 5

Adriaanse et al (2011)

Identify habits:

• What would you usually snack on at home? (habitual response)
• What snack would you eat if this was not available? (alternative response)

Primed lexical decision task:

• Decide if a letter string is a word or non-word
• Prime: being at home
• Targets: Responses that the participants had generated + filler items (e.g., stairs, clock, saddle, wheels)
• so then you should respond quicker to habitual food - priming with the cue of home should speed it up to

results:
* habitual response much quicker than alternative

Question 6

how do we know associations develop through repetition - watch study

Answer 6

Wood et al (2002)

experience sampling

questions asked to participants when a watch would chimes:

• participants recorded what they were doing at the moment of the watch chime
• the frequency with which they had performed the behaviour in the past month
• the extent to which they performed the behaviour in the same physical location each time
• involvement of other people in the behaviour (others involved vs. others not involved)

results:
about 43% of actions were performed almost daily and usually in the same context

Question 7

criteria for establishing automaticity of habits (4)

Answer 7

• no deliberation (efficient)
• occur outside conscious awareness
• insensitive to changes in the value of the response (not dependent on people’s goals)
• difficult to control

Question 8

strong habits removing the need for deliberation - cycling study

Answer 8

Aarts et al (1997)

measure strength of cycling habits for 82 students

• decide, as quickly as possible, how to travel for nine trips
• measured habit through frequency of mentioning the bicycle

16 descriptions of travel situations, each with 4 attributes:

• weather conditions (rain, no rain)
• weight of luggage (4kg, 20kg)
• departure time (9:00am, 2:00pm)
• distance to the destination (2.5 km, 5 km)
  some of these lend themselves to going by bike, others do not - sensible judgements - but depends as some people would always cycle regardless

favourability of using the bicycle in each travel situation (1-10 scale)

number of attributes used to make decision = operationalised as how predictive attributes were of decision

results:

• strong habits = use fewer of the attributes (scenario factors) to make their decision on whether to cycle
• non-habitual = more deliberation, use of context more when deciding whether to go by bike

Question 9

awareness of habits - do people not think about habitual behaviours - study

Answer 9

Wood et al (2002)

watch study - record what you’re doing at time of watch chime

also asked them:

• what were you thinking about during this activity?
• whether they considered each behaviour to be a habit (yes / no)

to see whether people do think about it as they do their habits

results:

• non-habitual = 70% thoughts correspond with behaviour
• habitual = 40% thoughts correspond with behaviour

Question 10

habits - insensitivity to changes in value of the response - popcorn study

Answer 10

Neal et al (2011)

3 variables:

• habit strength ( e.g. how frequently do you eat popcorn at cinema )
• context (e.g. cinema or in a meeting room)
• value of response (e.g. popcorn was either fresh or stale)

for half of the participants, popcorn was fresh, other half stale

DV = how much of the popcorn participants ate

results:
in meeting room:

• all ate not much popcorn
• all ate more fresh than stale
• slightly higher for habitual than others

in cinema:

• high habit ate similar amount of stale or fresh
• low and moderate habit at more fresh than stale - bigger difference in lower habit

discussion:
high habit, don’t stop even when behaviour is not rewarding as it is habitual so they just do it regardless

Question 11

are habits just about behaviour

Answer 11

no - can have mental habits

Question 12

mental habits study

Answer 12

Verplanken et al (2007)

Habit Index of Negative Thinking (HINT)
–> like a measure of pessimistic people and whether this just happens or if it is a habitual thing

Question 13

are habits part of who we are - measure and studies (3)

Answer 13

measure:
self-report habit index (SRHI) (Verplanken & Orbell, 2003)

• e.g. “doing X is something that is typically me”
• question of if we want to be defined by our habits e.g. being a cyclist rather than someone who cycles

Murtagh et al (2012)

• if being a driver is an important part of who they are; and how often do they cycle/bus/walk/train for local journeys
• rs vary between 0.02 and 0.07

Albini et al. (2018)

• how important eating fruit/veg is; and frequency of eating fruit/veg (SRHI)
• correlation for vegetables (r = 0.49), but not fruit (r = 0.06)

Verplanken and Sui (2019)

• how much does this activity reflects who you really are as a person (“true self”); and frequency of doing activity
• median correlation between these two measures was r = 0.46

Question 14

are habits good or bad

Answer 14

mostly they are functional - no deliberation, efficient

often though used to mean bad or unwanted instead

Question 15

can motivation alone change/break habits

Answer 15

Webb and Sheeran (2006)

• meta-analysis of 47 studies that changed participants’ intentions to do things
• changes in intentions led to larger changes in behaviours that participants performed sporadically (d+ = 0.74) than in behaviours that could be repeated into habits (d+ = 0.22)

Question 16

are habits goal dependent?

Answer 16

no - goal independent (debate thought)

automatic response triggered when a goal is accessible

confusing due to complexity of awareness of goal and behaviours

Question 17

habits - failing to act on intention

Answer 17

counter-intentional habits

Intentions have smaller effects on behaviours performed frequently in similar situations (Ouellette & Wood, 1998)

Question 18

reasons for difficulties breaking habits

Answer 18

not aware that:

• habits drive behaviour
• which cues trigger habits
• the response is habitual

habits are also:

• insensitive to changes in the value of the response (stale popcorn)
• may define people

Question 19

habit changing strategy: change circumstances

Answer 19

If habits are cued by recurring stimuli, then changes in circumstances that remove these stimuli should disrupt habits

Question 20

habit changing strategy: change circumstances - study

Answer 20

Wood et al (2005)

measured at 2 times: 4 weeks before moving and 4 weeks after move to uni

report frequency of performance of:

• exercise
• read the newspaper
• watched TV

report:

• do they typically perform behaviour in same location
• do they typically do with same people/alone
• do those around them also perform the behaviour

before moving = stability of context:
after moving = changes in context

after move also report extent to which the context in which they performed each behaviour at the two universities was similar / different

results:

• exercise = decreased frequency with change in location - greater decrease for strong
• watching TV = decrease with more perceived change - greater decrease for strong - idea that non-habitual can tolerate the changes, habitual are too strongly associated with context
• reading newspaper and change in others presence –> strong habits = decrease with bigger change in others presence, weak habits = increased reading with bigger change in others presence

Question 21

habit changing strategy: vigilant monitoring

Answer 21

thinking “don’t do it”
watching carefully for mistakes
monitoring behaviour

Question 22

habit changing strategy: vigilant monitoring - study

Answer 22

Quinn et al (2010)

participants identify behaviours that they tried to inhibit or change during a typical day

measure strength of participants’ habits:

• how often they had performed the unwanted behaviour in the past
• the extent to which they performed the unwanted act in the same location each time

at follow-up - reported the strategies they used ( in a diary):

• vigilant monitoring e.g., thinking “don’t do it”, watching carefully for mistakes, monitoring behaviour)
• distraction
• stimulus control (e.g., removing opportunity)
• nothing

rated the overall success of each attempt to change their behaviour

results:

weak habits = 3 strategies all equally effective
strong habits = monitoring was best, then distraction, and stimulus control had almost no effect (struggled to do this as they find it hard to identify the cues or what determines different habitual behaviours e.g. think you drink coffee as you are tired but actually its habitual from location or others)

Question 23

habit changing strategy: make a plan - snack study

Answer 23

Adriaanse et al (2011)

Forming an implementation intention creates a new association with the critical cue that is then pitted against the habitual association in a ‘horse race’

being at home –> habitual snack or alternative snack

habitual response is quicker than alternative when at home

new plan of “if im at home and i want i snack i will take [alternative]”

this strengthens the non-habitual and makes it faster - then habitual response becomes slower than alternative

Question 24

breaking habits - recycling at a telecom company study

Answer 24

Holland et al (2006)

company got individual recycling boxes for old paperwork and plastic cups, but no change in amount binned

intervention:
one group of employees plan when, where and how they would recycle their paper and plastic cups

measure of behaviour:

• weight of paper and cups in each participant’s dustbin at the end of a working day
• measured: before, 1 week, 2 weeks, 2 months

results:

• implementation intention, facility, and facility questionnaire all decreased paper waste to almost 0
• control and control questionnaire stayed about the same

Question 25

breaking habit - making a plan and habit strength - cigarette study

Answer 25

Webb et al (2009) Recruited regular smokers who wanted to quit from high schools Measured strength of smoking habits * Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, number of months as a smoker, and number of attempts to give up smoking One half form implementation intentions: * When I feel stressed, then instead of smoking I will _________ * When someone offers me a cigarette, then in order not to smoke I will _________ * When I meet up with my friends who smoke, then in order not to smoke I will ______ * When I observe someone who enjoys smoking, then in order not to smoke I will _________ Control condition: * completed one of three control exercises concerning seat belt use One month later, participants’ smoking behaviour was followed up - number of cigarettes per day results - with implementation intention: strong habits stay the same moderate habit = slight decrease weak habit = smoked less