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Habits in everyday life: thought, emotion, and action. J Pers Soc Psychol, 83, 1281-1297

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Abstract

To illustrate the differing thoughts and emotions involved in guiding habitual and nonhabitual behavior, 2 diary studies were conducted in which participants provided hourly reports of their ongoing experiences. When participants were engaged in habitual behavior, defined as behavior that had been performed almost daily in stable contexts, they were likely to think about issues unrelated to their behavior, presumably because they did not have to consciously guide their actions. When engaged in nonhabitual behavior, or actions performed less often or in shifting contexts, participants' thoughts tended to correspond to their behavior, suggesting that thought was necessary to guide action. Furthermore, the self-regulatory benefits of habits were apparent in the lesser feelings of stress associated with habitual than nonhabitual behavior.
Habits in Everyday Life: Thought, Emotion, and Action
Wendy Wood and Jeffrey M. Quinn
Texas A&M University Deborah A. Kashy
Michigan State University
To illustrate the differing thoughts and emotions involved in guiding habitual and nonhabitual behavior, 2
diary studies were conducted in which participants provided hourly reports of their ongoing experiences.
When participants were engaged in habitual behavior, defined as behavior that had been performed
almost daily in stable contexts, they were likely to think about issues unrelated to their behavior,
presumably because they did not have to consciously guide their actions. When engaged in nonhabitual
behavior, or actions performed less often or in shifting contexts, participants’ thoughts tended to
correspond to their behavior, suggesting that thought was necessary to guide action. Furthermore, the
self-regulatory benefits of habits were apparent in the lesser feelings of stress associated with habitual
than nonhabitual behavior.
In this research we address the relation between ongoing
thought, emotion, and everyday action. In the standard predictive
models in social psychology, behavior is a product of a series of
cognitive and affective events, typically preceded most closely by
conscious intentions to perform the act (Ajzen, 1987; Eagly &
Chaiken, 1993; Gollwitzer, 1999; although see Greve, 2001).
Intentions can be generated through thoughtful deliberation or
relatively superficial processes. Research that has measured peo-
ple’s intentions and then behavior has provided strong support for
these models (see meta-analytic reviews by Armitage & Conner,
2001; Randall & Wolff, 1994; Sheppard, Hartwick, & Warshaw,
1988).
However, not all behaviors are preceded by conscious inten-
tions. Only minimal, sporadic thought is required to initiate, im-
plement, and terminate actions that in the past have been repeated
in stable contexts. Such actions reflect habits, and Ouellette and
Wood (1998) demonstrated that specific intentions to perform
repeated behaviors are not good predictors of such acts. Instead,
habit performance reflects the routine repetition of past acts that is
cued by stable features of the environment. In this view, the
disposition or tendency to perform habitual behaviors is implicit, it
is expressed through the performance itself, and it may not be
reflected in people’s thoughts or reported intentions. Thus, predic-
tive models of behavior indicate that action can emerge from
conscious intentions or from implicit guides developed through
past performance.
Research on the organization of memory systems is consistent
with the idea that behavior can be generated through multiple
processes. For example, neuropsychological studies of memory
have examined patients with brain lesions that yield selective
memory impairment or have used functional neuroimaging tech-
niques to examine activation of brain regions during performance
of behavioral tasks (see reviews by Schacter, 1992, 1995). In this
research, noncognitive habit and skill memory have been linked to
a complex of specific brain systems involving the basal ganglia,
cerebellum, and motor neocortex (Gabrieli, 1998; Squire, Knowl-
ton, & Musen, 1993). These differ from the systems associated
with priming and other forms of nonconscious memory and from
the systems involved in declarative, conscious memory for facts
and events. In addition, a number of studies of memory perfor-
mance have supported a dual-process model in which habitual
patterns and conscious recollection contribute independently to
memory performance (e.g., Caldwell & Masson, 2001; Hay &
Jacoby, 1996; Jacoby, Yonelinas, & Jennings, 1997). In sum,
research on behavior prediction and on memory systems has
distinguished habitual responses from more thoughtful modes of
behavior generation.
Despite the emerging evidence for habitual patterns of respond-
ing, social psychological models of habit are in the early stages of
development. In part, this is because of the often-noted problem of
how to construct appropriate measures of habit (Eagly & Chaiken,
1993; Verplanken & Aarts, 1999). The standard measure is the
frequency with which a behavior has been performed in the past.
Although past performance frequency appears to be an effective
predictor of future behavior, this relation is not necessarily infor-
mative about habits. Ajzen (2002) elaborated on these concerns in
his critique of the behavior prediction research that has demon-
strated the effects of past behavior on future behavior. In his view,
the residual effect of past behavior on future behavior emerges to
the extent that intentions are weakly formed, poorly specified, or
unrealistic. Thus, past behavior effects emerge to the extent that
the true predictors of behavior are not accurately captured in
self-reports of intention. Although it is reasonable to suppose that
stronger intentions are better predictors of behavior than weaker
Wendy Wood and Jeffrey M. Quinn, Department of Psychology, Texas
A&M University; Deborah A. Kashy, Department of Psychology, Michi-
gan State University.
The second study served as Jeffrey M. Quinn’s master’s thesis, under
the direction of Wendy Wood. This research was supported by National
Institute of Mental Health Grant 1R01MH619000-01 awarded to Wendy
Wood. We thank Aysun Bursali for her thoughtful suggestions concerning
the project and Roy Baumeister for his comments on an earlier version of
this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Wendy
Wood, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Sta-
tion, Texas 77843. E-mail: w-wood@tamu.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
2002, Vol. 83, No. 6, 1281–1297 0022-3514/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.83.6.1281
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