Measuring context–response associations that drive habits

Abstract

People achieve important life outcomes of health, financial security, and productivity by repeating operant behavior. To identify whether such operants reflect goal pursuit or habit, the present research introduces a new paradigm that yields objective measures of learning and controls for the motivations of goal pursuit. In two experiments, participants practiced a sequential task of making sushi and then completed a test of the strength of cue–response (habit) associations in memory. Finally, they repeated the sushi task without instructions while under cognitive load (designed to impede deliberation about goals). As predicted, greater task practice yielded stronger cue–response associations, which in turn promoted task success. Practice did not improve performance by enhancing goal intentions or other task motivations. We conclude that repetition facilitates performance by creating mental associations that automatically activate practiced, habitual responses upon perception of recurring context cues.

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

“…Some commentators have proposed a distinction between habits that trigger (i.e., 'habitually instigate') an episode of behaviour, and habits that automate performance (i.e., 'habitually execute' the action; Gardner et al, 2016). This distinction can be depicted sequentially; adopting an action phases approach (e.g., Heckhausen, 2007), 'instigation habits' effectively bridge the gap between pre-action and action, by selecting and generating a commitment to 'taking a shower', whereas 'execution habits' allow smooth movement through the action phase to completion (e.g., Labrecque et al, 2024). Alternatively, the instigation-execution distinction can be portrayed hierarchically, with 'instigation habits' initiating a higher-order action, within which is nested a series of lower-order actions facilitated by 'execution habits' (Figure 2).…”

Testing the Effect of Cue Consistency on the Past Behavior–Habit–Physical Activity Relationship

“…The basis of such automatic actions is drawn from the overall conceptualization of the habit construct as a stimulus–response effect based upon the connection between cues, contexts, and actions in associative memory [ 14 , 19 , 20 ]. Thus, a key thread in contemporary habit theory is that the development and enactment of more automatically performed actions should be contingent on the presence of consistent environmental or internal contexts in which a behavior is repeatedly performed [ 21 , 22 , 23 ], that is, a habit is formed when a behavior is repeated in the presence of a stable internal (e.g., mood) or external cue (e.g., place, time, and people), and the behavioral response becomes linked to the cue in associative memory. Once the cue and behavioral response become associated in memory, encountering that cue or context again should activate the learned stimulus–response effect and, thus, be sufficient to trigger the action chains encouraging behavioral enactment with little or no conscious deliberation [ 19 ].…”