What is habit and how can it be used to change real‐world behaviour? Narrowing the theory‐reality gap

IF 4.8 2区 心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL Social and Personality Psychology Compass Pub Date : 2024-05-31 DOI:10.1111/spc3.12975
Benjamin Gardner, Amanda L. Rebar, Sanne de Wit, Phillippa Lally
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Abstract

Habit change is often seen as key to successful long‐term behaviour change. Making ‘good’ behaviours habitual—that is, ensuring a behaviour is prompted automatically on exposure to situational cues, based on cue‐response associations learnt through context‐consistent repetition—is portrayed as a mechanism for sustaining such behaviours over time. Conversely, disrupting ‘bad’ habits is expected to terminate longstanding unwanted actions. Yet, some commentators have suggested that the role of habit in real‐world behaviour and behaviour change has been overstated. Such critiques highlight a gap between habit theory and the reality of human behaviour ‘in the wild’. This state‐of‐the‐field review aims to narrow this gap. Building on a core distinction between habit and habitual behaviour, our review seeks to offer interpretations of habit theory and evidence that will better manage intervention designers' expectations regarding how modifying habit can realistically be expected to promote behaviour change. We emphasise that habit is just one potential influence on behaviour at any given moment, and highlight instances in which habit may dominate over intention, and in which intention may dominate over habit, in determining behaviour frequency. We suggest that, while it may assist behaviour maintenance, habit formation may be neither necessary nor sufficient to sustain real‐world behaviour change. We draw attention to the various ways in which habit may be ‘broken’ (i.e., disrupted), and discern the implications of each habit disruption mechanism for long‐term cessation of unwanted behaviours.
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什么是习惯?如何利用习惯改变现实世界中的行为?缩小理论与现实的差距
习惯的改变通常被视为成功实现长期行为改变的关键。使 "好 "行为习惯化,即确保在接触到情境线索时,根据通过情境一致的重复而学习到的线索-反应关联,自动促使行为发生,被描绘成一种长期保持这种行为的机制。相反,破坏 "坏 "习惯有望终止长期存在的不受欢迎的行为。然而,一些评论家认为,习惯在现实行为和行为改变中的作用被夸大了。这些批评凸显了习惯理论与 "野生 "人类行为现实之间的差距。本领域现状综述旨在缩小这一差距。基于习惯和惯常行为之间的核心区别,我们的综述试图提供对习惯理论和证据的解释,以便更好地管理干预设计者对改变习惯如何能够切实促进行为改变的期望。我们强调,在任何特定时刻,习惯只是对行为的一种潜在影响,并着重指出在决定行为频率时,习惯可能比意图更重要,而意图可能比习惯更重要。我们认为,虽然习惯的养成可能有助于行为的维持,但对于维持现实世界中的行为变化来说,习惯的养成可能既不是必要的,也不是充分的。我们提请大家注意 "打破"(即破坏)习惯的各种方式,并分析了每种习惯破坏机制对长期停止不想要的行为的影响。
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来源期刊
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Social and Personality Psychology Compass Psychology-Social Psychology
CiteScore
5.20
自引率
2.20%
发文量
59
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