Lecture 5 - Habits

habits

-strong associations in memory between contexts and responses that have developed through repetition

-insensitive to changes in the value or contingency of the response outcomes

frequency (of habits)

-habit should not be equated with frequency of occurrence

-having a habit is more than doing something frequently, key indicator is how often or for how long something is done

-can habitually not do something vs just not doing something

adriaanse - method (evidence that habits are represented by strong associations between contexts and responses)

-identified habits:

• what would you usually snack on at home? - habitual response

• what snack would you eat if this was not available? (alternative response)

-then completed a primed lexical decision task

• decide if a letter string is a word or non-word

• prime is home

• targets → responses that the participants had generated + filler items

-so should see activation of things associated with home such as snacking so respond quicker to related snacks

adriaanse - results (evidence that habits are represented by strong associations between contexts and responses)

-prime word home and then show what they typically eat takes 620ms to respond

-but if give alternative response of what they don’t usually eat then takes 675ms to respond

-shows priming effect and evidence for association between context and habitual response

wood (do habits develop through repetition)

-experience sampling → participants recorded what they were doing at the time of a watch chime

-frequency with which they had performed the behaviour in the past month

-extent to which they performed the behaviour in the same physical location

-involvement of other people in the behaviour

-43% of actions performed almost daily and in the same context

criteria for establishing automaticity (are habitual responses automatic)

-do not require deliberation

-occur outside conscious awareness

-insensitive to changes in the value of the response

-difficult to control

aarts - method (do strong habits remove the need for deliberation)

-measure the strength of cycling habits

• decide how to travel for 9 trips

• frequency of mentioning bicycle served as a measure of habit

-received 16 descriptions of travel situations, each with 4 attributes:

1. weather conditions

2. weight of luggage

3. departure time

4. distance to the destination

-favourability of using the bicycle in each travel situation

-number of attributes used to make decision - operationalised of how predictive attributes were of decision

aarts - results (do strong habits remove the need for deliberation)

-non-habitual cyclists took into account 2.2 attributes

-whereas habitual cyclists tend to take into account less of the attributes → so still deliberate and attitudes are still predictive of behaviour

-still significant but smaller proportion of attributes considered

-so habits occur without people being aware of them and people less likely to be thinking of habitual actions than non-habitual actions

do thoughts correspond with behaviour?

-when behaviour was non-habitual → 70% of time thinking about non-habitual action

-when behaviour was habitual → less likely to be thinking about it and more likely to be thinking about something else

-thoughts less likely to correspond with habitual behaviour than non-habitual behaviour

neal - method (are habits insensitive to changes in the value of the response?)

-measured:

• habit strength → how frequently do you eat popcorn in the movie theaters?

• context → cinema or meeting room?

• value of the response → popcorn was either fresh or stale?

-DV was how much popcorn people eat

neal - results (are habits insensitive to changes in the value of the response?)

-in meeting room context people don’t eat much popcorn, ate slightly more if fresh than stale → don’t eat more even if habitually eat more popcorn at the cinema → shows habit not powerful enough to overcome staleness

-in cinema context → supports habit, amount of popcorn consumed depends more on habit and eat less popcorn when stale

-eat more when fresh if don’t have habit → but if habit will eat the popcorn regardless

-habit is insensitive to the value of the response as the value of the response has changed but for people with the habit it still persists

verplanken - method (mental habits)

-can have habitual patterns of thoughts

-developed habit index of negative thinking about the self → some people habitually critical of self

-thought responses can have the same properties of behavioural responses

self-report habit index (are habits part of who we are)

-designed to capture habits

-capture different features of habitual responses

-doing x is something that is typically me → part of the self and opens question of if we are defined by our habits

murtagh (are habits part of who we are)

-extent to which being a driver is part of who they are

-then looked at behaviour

-weak correlation between being a driver and extent to which they use alternative transport → 0.02 to 0.07

-but didn’t measure the extent to which people drive a car

albini (are habits part of who we are)

-extent to which people feel like eating fruit is something they do frequently and part of who they are

-correlation between eating veg and how important it is to them

-but no correlation found for fruit

verplanken - results (are habits part of who we are)

-how much does this activity reflet who you really are as a person?

-how frequently do you do this activity?

-the median correlation between these two measures was r = 0.46 → large size correlation

-so people more likely to do things they felt were part of them as people

webb & sheeran (is it possible to change or break habits)

-motivation alone is unlikely to be enough

-meta-analysis of 47 studies that changes participants’ intentions to do things

-changes in intentions led to larger changes in behaviours that participants sporadically (d = 0.74)

-less changes in behaviours that could be repeated into habits (d = 0.22)

counter-intentional habits

-intentions have smaller effects on behaviours performed frequently in similar situations

difficulty breaking habits

-people may not be aware:

• habits drive behaviour

• of the cues that trigger habits

• of the habitual responses

-habits are also:

• insensitive to changes in the value of the response

• may define us

wood & tam - method (changing circumstances - breaking habits)

-looked at frequency of student behaviour before and after moving to university

• stability of context → participants indicated whether they typically performed each behaviour in the same location, with the same people and whether those around them perform the behaviour

• changes in context → participants reported the extent to which the context they performed behaviour in at the two contexts was similar/different

wood & tam - results (changing circumstances - breaking habits)

-people with strong habits are very disrupted by changes in contextual cues

-people with weaker habits are less disrupted, are more flexible and adaptive to new circumstances → exercise more similar across the two contexts

-same pattern for watching TV and reading newspapers

quinn - method (vigilant monitoring - breaking habits)

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

-measure strength of participants’ habits

-at follow-up:

• reported the strategies they used → vigilant monitoring, distraction, stimulus control, nothing

• vigilant monitoring → paying attention to behaviours that aren’t usually thought about to prevent them

-rated the overall success of each attempt to change their behaviour

quinn - results (vigilant monitoring - breaking habits)

-vigilant monitoring effective for people with strong habits

-more successful at changing things that aren’t habitual

-stimulus control more effective than monitoring strategy and distracting

mean response latencies of the habitual responses - method (make a plan - breaking habits)

-faster to respond to habitual snack than alternative less eaten snack

-other condition of trying to break habit by planning to eat non-habitual snack instead → making a plan

-forming an implementation intention creates a new association with the habitual cue that is then pitted against the habitual association

mean response latencies of the habitual responses - results (make a plan - breaking habits)

-responded quicker to alternative food and responded slower to habitual response in condition when they made a plan

-suggests new association has been formed and this partly inhibits the old association

holland - method (make a plan - breaking habits)

-telecom company installed recycling boxes for old paperwork and plastic cups, but the amount binned did not seem to be reduced

-one group of employees asked to plan when, where and how they would recycle their paper and plastic cups

-recycling behaviour → weight of paper and cups in each participant’s bin

holland - results (make a plan - breaking habits)

-lower paper weight in in implementation intention condition

-planning seemed to be helpful - tends to disrupt habits and put less paper in bin

-but strength of habits was not accounted for and effectiveness of planning may depend on this

webb & sheeran - second method (effectiveness of planning depends on strength of habit)

-recruited smokers

-measured strength of smoking habits

-one half formed implementation intentions

-control condition completed one of three control exercises concerning seat belt use

-one month later, participants’ smoking behaviour was followed up

webb & sheeran - second results (effectiveness of planning depends on strength of habit)

-forming implementation intentions effective for reducing habits → but only for those with weak habits

-no effect for those with moderate or strong habits

-need to take into account the habit trying to break → boundary conditions for effectiveness of strategies