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How Do People Adhere to Goals When Willpower Is Low? The Profits (and Pitfalls) of Strong Habits
Abstract and Figures
Across 5 studies, we tested whether habits can improve (as well as derail) goal pursuit when people have limited willpower. Habits are repeated responses automatically triggered by cues in the performance context. Because the impetus for responding is outsourced to contextual cues, habit performance does not depend on the finite self-control resources required for more deliberative actions. When these resources are limited, people are unable to deliberatively choose or inhibit responses, and they become locked into repeating their habits. Thus, depletion increases habit performance. Furthermore, because the habit-cuing mechanism is blind to people's current goals, depletion should boost the performance of both desirable and undesirable habits. This habit boost effect emerged consistently across experiments in the field (Studies 1-2) and in the laboratory (Studies 3-4), as well as in a correlational study using a trait measure of self-control (Study 5). Given that many of people's habits in daily life are congruent with their goals, habit processes can improve goal adherence when self-control is low. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
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... Yet cognitive drains may decrease people's capacity to respond to such demands. Thus, people continue to act on habit despite their current goals when goal pursuit is impeded by time pressure (Hardwick et al., 2019), stress (Schwabe & Wolf, 2009), and fatigue (Neal et al., 2013). It is not surprising, then, that the strongest evidence for habit insensitivity to goals comes from studies of everyday behavior, especially social media use. ...
... Users who self-reported strong posting habits were also those who posted more frequently. This replicates prior research in social media contexts (Anderson & Wood, 2021) and others (Galla & Duckworth, 2015;Neal et al., 2013) and supports the use of posting frequency as a measure of habit in our next study. This first study also ruled out several alternative accounts for the pattern of habit insensitivity. ...
Motivations that drive initial or occasional actions may have less impact as people repeat a behavior and form habits that are automatically cued by contexts. We tested this shifting role of motivation with social media engagement. Specifically, we compared the effects of social rewards on the posting rates of infrequent and beginning posters compared with frequent, habitual ones. A preliminary study demonstrated the limited effect of social rewards on frequent Instagram users. A more controlled observational study with Facebook also revealed that non-habitual users increased their engagement after receiving social rewards on a prior post, whereas habitual ones were unaffected. In a further test, we analyzed a 2007 change in Facebook’s platform design that motivated infrequent posters to engage more online. However, habitual users did not increase their posting rates; instead, they were disrupted by the new platform design. Finally, we show that these effects were not due to waning motivation: Habitual users reported being concerned about others’ reactions and predicted they would increase engagement following rewards and the platform change. Thus, frequent users responded automatically out of habit despite their motivations.
... People keep on track by responding habitually when distractions, stress, and dips in willpower impede decision-making. 27 However, when habits are unhealthy, the automatic or environmental control of behavior impedes health and can create a self-control dilemma. ...
Background:
Chronic (ie, long-term) elevated stress is associated with a number of mental and physical health conditions. Mindfulness meditation mobile apps are a promising tool for stress self-management that can overcome several barriers associated with in-person interventions; however, to date, poor app-based intervention adherence has limited the efficacy of these mobile health tools. Anchoring, or pairing, a new behavior with an existing routine has been shown to effectively establish habits that are maintained over time, but this strategy typically only works for those with high initial motivation and has yet to be tested for maintaining meditation with a mobile app.
Objective:
This study will test novel combinations of behavioral economics-based incentives with the anchoring strategy for establishing and maintaining adherence to an effective dose of meditation with a mobile app.
Methods:
This 16-week study will use a 5-arm, parallel, partially blinded (participants only), randomized controlled design. We will implement a fractional factorial study design that varies the use of self-monitoring messages and financial incentives to support participants' use of their personalized anchoring strategy for maintaining adherence to a ≥10 minute-per-day meditation prescription during an 8-week intervention period, followed by an 8-week postintervention observation period. Specifically, we will vary the use of self-monitoring messages of either the target behavior (ie, meditation tracking) or the outcome associated with the target behavior (ie, mood symptom tracking). We will also vary the use of financial incentives conditional on either meditation at any time of day or meditation performed at approximately the same time of day as participants' personalized anchors.
Results:
Continuous meditation app use data will be used to measure weekly meditation adherence over the 16-week study period as a binary variable equal to 1 if participants complete ≥10 minutes of meditation for ≥4 days per week and 0 otherwise. We will measure weekly anchoring plan adherence as a binary variable equal to 1 if participants complete ≥10 minutes of meditation within +1 or -1 hour of the timing of their chosen anchor on ≥4 days per week and 0 otherwise. In addition to these primary measures of meditation and anchoring plan adherence, we will also assess the secondary measures of stress, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, sleep disturbance, and meditation app habit strength at baseline, week 8, and week 16.
Conclusions:
This study will fill an important gap in the mobile health literature by testing novel intervention approaches for establishing and maintaining adherence to app-based mindfulness meditation. If successful, this study will identify an accessible and scalable stress self-management intervention that can help combat stress in the United States.
Trial registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05217602; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05217602.
International registered report identifier (irrid):
DERR1-10.2196/39930.
... In addition to others, leadership and team members are two important factors in organizational achievements (Bregenzer et al., 2020;Katsaros et al., 2020). Managerial 6 power-sharing behavior is linked to project contestants' enthusiasm and performance (Liu & Fang, 2006) because it intrinsically pushes contestants to attain a common goal (Neal et al., 2013). Employees who believe that their effort is appreciated, are motivated to do their best (Liden et al., 2000). ...
Drawing on affective event theory, the current research intends to examine the link amongst despotic leadership, project success, psychological empowerment and psychological safety. A total of 706 supervisors and their staff of three project-based information technology (IT) companies located in Lahore took part in a time-lagged survey. The subjects of the study were selected through convenience sampling procedure. The theorized relationships were analyzed utilizing structural equation modeling. Findings uncovered that despotic leadership significantly affected project success. Furthermore, psychological empowerment mediated the association of despotic leadership and project success. However, the mediation of psychological safety was not significant. The research implications are deliberated.
... Like emotional clarity, the ability to engage in goal-directed or desired actions is hindered in times of stress and trauma. Experimental work has demonstrated that in stressful scenarios, people's engagement in goal-directed behaviors declines and, rather, their engagement in habits or routine behaviors increases (Neal et al., 2013). Neuroscientific findings corroborate this work, showing that elevations of stress hormones reduce people's ability to make decisions and plan, but instead, increase their engagement in established routines (Schwabe et al., 2012). ...
Research during the COVID-19 pandemic and prior outbreaks suggest that boredom is linked to poor compliance with critical lifesaving social distancing and quarantine guidelines, as well as to numerous mental health difficulties. As such, continued understanding on what contributes to boredom is imperative. Extending beyond the roles of constraint, monotony, and trait dispositions (e.g., individual differences in boredom propensity), and informed by prior theories on the emotional contributors of boredom, the current longitudinal study examined the predictive role of “pandemic trauma” on people’s boredom, with a focus on how emotion dysregulation mediates this relationship. Community participants (N = 345) completed questionnaires three times across an average of 3 1/2 weeks, rating their pandemic trauma, emotion dysregulation, and boredom over the past week each time. Pandemic trauma was assessed with items querying exposure to coronavirus, as well as the financial, resource-related, and interpersonal pandemic stressors that participants experienced. Emotion dysregulation was assessed with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Boredom was assessed with the short-form Multidimensional State Boredom Scale. The results of a theory-informed mediation model showed that participants’ pandemic trauma at Time 1 positively and modestly predicted their boredom at Time 3 and that this relationship was partially and moderately mediated by participants’ lack of emotional clarity and difficulties with engaging in goal-directed behaviors at Time 2. When people experience pandemic-related trauma, they subsequently struggle to understand their feelings and engage in goal-oriented actions, and, in turn, feel more bored. Theoretical and clinical implications as related to the emotional underpinnings of boredom are discussed.
... Accordingly, ego depletion theory postulates that practicing self-regulation on one task can lead to impaired performance on a subsequent task that also requires self-regulation (see Carter et al., 2015;Dang, 2018;Friese et al., 2018;Hagger et al., 2010, for reviews and meta-analyses). The effects of depleting self-regulatory resources were evident in many domains, such as controlling dominant responses like emotions (e.g., Muraven et al., 1998), thoughts (e.g., Muraven & Slessareva, 2003;Wegner et al., 1987), impulses (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998), habits (e.g., Neal et al., 2013), or in initiating actions (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998). Moreover, self-regulatory resources also played a role in complex thought processes and intellectual performance (e.g., Janssen et al., 2008;Schmeichel et al., 2003;Schmeichel, 2007). ...
Lying is cognitively demanding and presumably requires self-regulation. According to ego depletion theory, a task that requires self-regulation should therefore impair an individual’s ability to tell a convincing lie in a later task. Consequently, it was hypothesized that a manipulation of ego depletion would enhance behavioral differences between liars and truth-tellers. To manipulate ego depletion, participants worked (vs. did not work) on a task in which they had to suppress dominant responses while copying a text. Subsequently, they talked in a simulated job interview about a job they had previously held (vs. not held). In the sample of 164 participants, there was no evidence to support the hypothesis; the expected Ego Depletion x Veracity interaction was not significant for any of the 15 behavioral cues coded in the videotaped interviews. Although the main effect of ego depletion was significant at the multivariate level for the first of two parts of the interview, none of the univariate main effects reached the significance level corrected for multiple testing. Bayesian analyses rendered moderate to strong evidence in favor of the null hypothesis. Possible implications of the results are discussed, also those related to ego depletion theory.
... In times of trauma and stress many people and groups move to operating off of conditioned 'reflexes' or habits (Neal, Wood & Drolet, 2013); the protocols, practices and routines that allow them to continue operating at a base level. After two major and devastating events at our marine science institution we were surprised to discover how dynamic our educator habits were and the ways in which this enabled us to be more resilient and responsive to the impacts on our practice. ...
In a meta-analysis of research on measures of the habit construct, we aimed to estimate the size and variability of habit–behavior and intention–behavior relations, and habit as a mediator of past–future behavior relations. Furthermore, we investigated the theory-consistent moderators of these relations including opportunity for habit formation and behavioral complexity, and the capacity of different habit measures to detect these effects. We also tested effects of behavior type, behavior measure, and measurement lag as moderators of these effects, and explored convergence in correlations among habit measures and their indication of a single habit factor. A database search identified studies (k = 267) reporting relations among habit measures (behavioral frequency × context stability, response frequency, self-report measures), behavior, and intention. Data were analyzed using multilevel meta-analytic structural equation modeling. Habit and intention independently predicted behavior, and habit partially mediated past–future behavior relations. Larger habit–behavior relations were observed in studies targeting behaviors with high opportunity for habit formation and lower complexity, but no analogous effects for intention–behavior relations. Similar trends for these moderators were observed across the habit measures, although differences were nonzero for self-reported habit measures only. Habit–behavior relations were larger in studies adopting self-report habit measures that included behavioral frequency items and those with greater measurement lag. Convergence in habit measure correlations, and their indication of a single habit factor, was supported. Findings corroborate and extend prior research on habit, particularly convergence in behavioral effects of the habit measures. Findings are expected to catalyze future habit research using experimental methods and non-self-report measures.
Physicians and other healthcare professionals often counsel patients on the many benefits of healthy lifestyle habits, but may neglect to incorporate healthy strategies into their everyday behavior. To have more time for work demands, busy healthcare professionals may fail to prioritize their own health and self care. In addition, making unhealthy lifestyle choices can increase stress levels which are detrimental to already stressful lives. Adopting a healthier lifestyle can greatly reduce premature mortality and increase longevity for all adults in the United States.¹ Key evidence-based, lifestyle-related factors include eating a healthy diet, being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, and never smoking.1,2
This featured collection of daily healthy habits have been selected from various evidence-based strategies encouraged by lifestyle medicine³ n.d.;⁴ dimensions of wellness,5,6 whole person health,⁷ healthy lifestyle factors,1,2 performance triad,8,9), and common longevity-enhancing lifestyle habits.10,11 A number of these suggested self care strategies are also helpful in managing anxiety,12,13 and reducing stress14,15 additional useful practices for harried providers.
Rationale
In 2020, nearly 40 million people lived with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) worldwide, of whom 70% were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). Two-thirds of PLWHA reside in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where rates of viral load suppression are often suboptimal and frequently attributed to low ART adherence. Strong pill-taking habits are often reported as a key strategy among those who successfully maintain medication adherence, yet not enough is known about the barriers and facilitators in SSA to pill-taking in response to the same contextual cue, which is a necessary step in the habit formation process.
Objective
To address this knowledge gap and to inform a subsequent intervention to promote context-dependent repetition, called anchoring, we used a formative qualitative approach to collect in-depth narratives about barriers and facilitators of the anchoring intervention for establishing ART pill-taking habits at the Mildmay Hospital in Kampala, Uganda.
Methods
We conducted interviews with 25 randomly selected patients starting ART, 5 expert patients, and 10 providers at Mildmay, and performed a rapid analysis to inform the intervention in a timely manner.
Results
We found that pill taking in response to the same contextual cue, or anchor, was threatened by stigma and food insecurity and that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these barriers. We also determined that important linguistic changes were needed to the instructional materials and reminder messages in the subsequent intervention to avoid words and phrases with negative connotations for this target population.
Conclusions
Several important barriers and facilitators to context-dependent pill taking in Uganda were identified through our formative research that helped to inform important revisions to our subsequent intervention. These findings underscore the importance of understanding local barriers and facilitators when designing and planning interventions, particularly when implementing theory-based intervention approaches that have yet to be tested in a new setting.
To illustrate the differing thoughts and emotion's 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.
Interventions to change everyday behaviors often attempt to change people’s beliefs and intentions. As the authors explain, these interventions are unlikely to be an effective means to change behaviors that people have repeated into habits. Successful habit change interventions involve disrupting the environmental factors that automatically cue habit performance. The authors propose two potential habit change interventions. “Downstream-plus” interventions provide informational input at points when habits are vulnerable to change, such as when people are undergoing naturally occurring changes in performance environments for many everyday actions (e.g., moving households, changing jobs). “Upstream” interventions occur before habit performance and disrupt old environmental cues and establish new ones. Policy interventions can be oriented not only to the change of established habits but also to the acquisition and maintenance of new behaviors through the formation of new habits.
The downstream consequences of a priming induction range from changes in the perception of objects in the environment to the initiation of prime-related behavior and goal striving. Although each of these outcomes has been accounted for by separate mechanisms, we argue that a single process could produce all three priming effects. In this article, we introduce the situated inference model of priming, discuss its potential to account for these divergent outcomes with one mechanism, and demonstrate its ability to organize the priming literatures surrounding these effects. According to the model, primes often do not cause direct effects, instead altering only the accessibility of prime-related mental content. This information produces downstream effects on judgment, behavior, or motivation when it is mistakenly viewed as originating from one's own internal thought processes. When this misattribution occurs, the prime-related mental content becomes a possible source of information for solving whatever problems are afforded by the current situation. Because different situations afford very different questions and concerns, the inferred meaning of this prime-related content can vary greatly. The use of this information to answer qualitatively different questions can lead a single prime to produce varied effects on judgment, behavior, and motivation.
© The Author(s) 2011.
Past behavior guides future responses through 2 processes. Well-practiced behaviors in constant contexts recur because the processing that initiates and controls their performance becomes automatic. Frequency of past behavior then reflects habit strength and has a direct effect on future performance. Alternately, when behaviors are not well learned or when they are performed in unstable or difficult contexts, conscious decision making is likely to be necessary to initiate and carry out the behavior. Under these conditions, past behavior (along with attitudes and subjective norms) may contribute to intentions, and behavior is guided by intentions. These relations between past behavior and future behavior are substantiated in a meta-analytic synthesis of prior research on behavior prediction and in a primary research investigation.
Habits are response dispositions that are activated automatically by the context cues that co-occurred with responses during past performance. Experience-sampling diary studies indicate that much of everyday action is characterized by habitual repetition. We consider various mechanisms that could underlie the habitual control of action, and we conclude that direct cuing and motivated contexts best account for the characteristic features of habit responding—in particular, for the rigid repetition of action that can be initiated without intention and that runs to completion with minimal conscious control. We explain the utility of contemporary habit research for issues central to psychology, especially for behavior prediction, behavior change, and self-regulation.
The major patterns of self-regulatory failure are reviewed. Underregulation occurs because of deficient standards, inadequate monitoring, or inadequate strength. Misregulation occurs because of false assumptions or misdirected efforts, especially an unwarranted emphasis on emotion. The evidence supports a strength (limited resource) model of self-regulation and suggests that people often acquiesce in losing control. Loss of control of attention, failure of transcendence, and various lapse-activated causes all contribute to regulatory failure.
Simple slopes, regions of significance, and confidence bands are commonly used to evaluate interactions in multiple linear regression (MLR) models, and the use of these techniques has recently been extended to multilevel or hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and latent curve analysis (LCA). However, conducting these tests and plotting the conditional relations is often a tedious and error-prone task. This article provides an overview of methods used to probe interaction effects and describes a unified collection of freely available online resources that researchers can use to obtain significance tests for simple slopes, compute regions of significance, and obtain confidence bands for simple slopes across the range of the moderator in the MLR, HLM, and LCA contexts. Plotting capabilities are also provided.