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Modelling Habit Formation and Its Determinants

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The Psychology of Habit

Abstract

Habitual actions are elicited automatically in associated settings, bypassing conscious motivation. This has prompted interest in habit formation as a mechanism for sustaining behaviour change when conscious motivation erodes. Promoting habit depends on understanding how habit develops. This chapter reviews theory and evidence around the habit formation process. First, we describe the few, recent studies that have explicitly sought to study habit development for meaningful activities in humans. Next, we outline a framework for understanding the habit formation process, and narratively review evidence regarding the factors that may directly facilitate or impede habit development, generating hypotheses for future studies. We offer practical suggestions for optimal modelling of habit formation and its determinants.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Given current interest in habit, it is ironic that some seminal empirical insights into habit formation were more incidental than purposeful. Tolman (1932) was irritated by habit-learning among his rats, viewing the development of goal-independent responses as mere noise that interfered with the study of more interesting learning processes: “the animal becomes ‘fixated’ upon a particular route. He persists in choosing it, willy nilly, even though in later trials it provides no longer preponderantly good. […] [These] so-called ‘position-habits’ … are such a nuisance to an experimenter” (p. 153).

  2. 2.

    While both studies modelled habit asymptotically, Fournier, et al., (2017) fitted a logistic function, which they argued offered superior fit than did the exponential curve used by Lally et al. (2010). This curve has a slower initial increase than the sharp early increases observed by Lally et al. (2010). These differences may reflect different study procedures (unlike Fournier and colleagues’ participants, for example, Lally et al.’s formed implementation intentions), or methodological differences such as limits set on curve parameter values. Further work is needed to rigorously compare the two curve equations across different study designs.

  3. 3.

    While not explicitly empirically tested, it is unlikely that habit formation, while typically arising from repeated enactment of intentions to act, requires an intention to form a habit. People who decide to gamble for the first time, for example, do not do so with the aim of developing gambling habits. Nonetheless, aspects of the gambling experience—such as the pleasure of a big win—reinforce behaviour and develop habit associations, regardless of the actor’s initial goals (Blaszczynski & Nower, 2002).

  4. 4.

    A more realistic depiction of the endpoint of stages 3a and 3b is that habit strength peaks. Habit strength is better represented as a continuum than a simple ‘habit-no habit’ dichotomy (Moors & de Houwer, 2006). This complicates attempts to distinguish a ‘habitual’ from a ‘non-habitual’ response. As Lally et al. (2010) showed, it is possible for habit strength to peak at only a moderate level, such that, in crude terms, an actor can be thought to have shifted from a ‘weak’ habit to a ‘moderate’ habit, rather than achieving a ‘strong’ habit.

  5. 5.

    Breaking a habit does not necessitate formation of a new habit, but habit disruption lies outside of the scope of this chapter. Broader discussion of theory and methods around disrupting habits can be found elsewhere (e.g. Lally & Gardner, 2013; Quinn et al., 2010; Verplanken & Wood, 2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK

    Benjamin Gardner

  2. Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, London, UK

    Phillippa Lally

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  2. Phillippa Lally
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Correspondence to Benjamin Gardner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Bas Verplanken

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Gardner, B., Lally, P. (2018). Modelling Habit Formation and Its Determinants. In: Verplanken, B. (eds) The Psychology of Habit. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97529-0_12

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