1. Creating and breaking habits November 10, 2010

2. Overview What is a habit? – How do they form? How can we change bad ones? How can we start good ones?

3. Popcorn at the movies Neal, Wood, Lally, & Wu. 2009

4. What is a habit? “A specific type of automaticity characterized by a rigid contextual cuing of behavior that does not depend on people’s goals or intentions” – Something we do because we always do it, whether we want to or not About 45% of people’s behavior is repeated almost daily and usually in the same context – Consumption, especially Where we buy groceries, when we eat, how we dispose of things, etc.

5. Cues in context Start out with…Becomes… Context Behavior Context Behavior Intention

6. Kinds of context Place Time of day Mood Other people Situation A combination of any of these…

7. How to break a habit? It’s hard! – You have to make a new plan and override old one, again and again How about temporarily overriding a habit? – Also hard, but not quite as much Overriding old pattern requires effort, which means it is easily overridden itself – Under time pressure – Under distraction – When self-control resources are limited

8. So then what? Context Behavior Context Behavior The weak link Work with this!

9. Add a good cue What do you do when you want to remember something? An unavoidable reminder – In front of the door – Set an alarm Associate it with a habit, to make it its own habit – Brushing teeth – Eating dinner

10. Subtract a bad cue The key to quitting smoking is not certain things one should do, but certain things one should not do – Avoid other smokers – Avoid alcohol – Avoid social situations where you tend to smoke – Change your schedule or routine to alter those times when you usually smoke

11. Take advantage of new contexts For yourself: – When you start something new, make sure you make plans to be the person you want to be Start saving when you start a new job Install thermostats, CFLS, etc., when you first move in For others: – Take advantage of shake-ups Bus passes for people who just moved to town Get new employees recycling

12. Commuting habits Verplanken, Walker, Davis, & Jurasek, 2008

13. How long does it take to form a habit? Repeated behaviors with an associated cue take about 66 days, on average, to become automatic – A missed day here or there does not seem to have a strong impact – Simpler behaviors (new eating or drinking habits) don’t take as long as more complex ones (exercising) – Effort required to remember behavior plateaus with time; the first few days show the greatest reductions in effort Lally et al., 2010

14. What about starting a new habit? Do: – Provide a small reward with behavior – Make sure the behavior is repeated often – Make sure the behavior is repeated in the same context – Form an explicit, simple, concrete implementation intention to start and repeat the behavior

15. Summary Habits are nonconsciously held links between a situation and a behavior They are hard to change, but it can be done: – Keep the focus on the situation, not the behavior Intentions don’t really help; implementation intentions do They are hard to start, but it can be done: – Keep at it; always link the cue to the behavior, and eventually it will stick Again, intentions don’t really help; implementation intentions do