The art of thinking · 7 · Brain and learning
Habit formation
Also known as: Habit learning, Habit acquisition
German: Gewohnheitsbildung
In psychology and neuroscience, habit formation is the process by which an action repeated in a stable context becomes associated with that context, so that the context comes to trigger the action with little deliberate intention.
- Cognitive psychology
- Brain research
- Learning
In one sentence
Habit formation: an action repeated in a stable context becomes linked to it, so the context triggers the action with little deliberate intention.
Example
In a study by Phillippa Lally and colleagues (2010), participants repeated a chosen daily behavior in the same context; the time until it felt automatic varied widely, from 18 to 254 days, with a median of 66 days.
What the research shows
Wendy Wood and David T. Neal (2007) described habits as associations between a context and a response, learned through repetition, which the context can activate without a current goal. Ann M. Graybiel (2008) reviewed the role of the basal ganglia: as behavior becomes habitual, activity in the striatum shifts, and sequences of actions are “chunked” into units that run as a whole. Wood and Dennis Rünger (2016) summarized the field: habits persist because they are triggered by context, and they are less sensitive to changes in goals or rewards than deliberate action.
Phillippa Lally and colleagues (2010) followed people who repeated a new daily behavior in a fixed context. Automaticity grew with repetition and leveled off, after a median of 66 days, with a range of 18 to 254 days; missing a single day did not reset the process.
Evidence status
The context dependence of habits and their relative independence from current goals are robust findings across laboratory and field studies. Popular rules such as “21 days to form a habit” are not supported; the time varies with the person and the behavior. Research on the brain systems involved comes largely from animal studies and is extended to humans with care.
How it applies
- Will and context: Research on habits distinguishes the decision to start from what keeps a behavior going: a stable context and repetition, rather than repeated resolve.
- For readers: Routine users act from habit; instructions and warnings that must interrupt a habit have to do so at the point of action (see dual-process theory).
- No advice on health: The entry describes research; it gives no recommendations for changing personal habits.
External references
- Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit–goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843–863. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843
- Graybiel, A. M. (2008). Habits, rituals, and the evaluative brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 31, 359–387. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.112851
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
- Wood, W., & Rünger, D. (2016). Psychology of habit. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 289–314. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417
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