Habits: Making them, breaking them, understanding them

Have you ever said you’ll shop less? To exercise every day? Decided to spend the evening studying but ended up watching Netflix and scrolling on your phone instead?

You’re not alone. Most of us struggle to form good habits and break bad ones. Indeed, an estimated 45% of what we do every day is habitized (Wood et al., 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). Why can’t we “just do it”? Or just not do it?

Here at Essex, in our final-year undergraduate psychology module The Psychology of (Self)-Improvement we learn about leading theory and research on habits. You would learn:

• what habits are, how they develop, and what their defining characteristics are;
• when habits are useful and how they can promote happiness and well-being;
• when habits are not so useful and the best ways to change them.

So, if you struggle with forming and maintaining good habits, wonder if you simply lack motivation and can’t seem to figure out why, this might be the module for you!

What are habits and how are they formed?

So, what is a habit? It is a cue-action association stored in one’s memory. When we encounter the cue, the action memory is automatically activated – as work by Essex Professor Sheina Orbell suggests (e.g. Orbell & Verplanken, 2010). 

In animals, habits are usually created by pairing a behaviour with a cue for a reward (e.g. training a rat to press a lever when a light is switched on). If the behaviour persists even when no reward is present, a habit has been formed.

In human beings, habits are typically formed when a particular behaviour repeatedly co-occurs with a particular context and cues, forming a mental association between the cue and the action (e.g. eating popcorn when watching a movie). When the cue is encountered, the action comes to mind with little conscious awareness (e.g. buying and consuming popcorn at a movie without thinking about it).

Why are habits hard to change?

Why are habits so hard to crack?

• One reason is that they are not controlled by the same regions of the brain that are implicated in reflective thought and decision-making (Smith & Graybiel, 2014). This makes them hard to overcome via conscious thought and willpower alone.
• Another reason is that once established, habits occur with ease and fluency, making life simpler.
• Finally, habits are resistant to distraction. This works well for good habits but not so well for bad ones! 

How should you change a habit?

Let’s say that you, a student at the University of Essex, want to create a habit of looking through your day’s lecture notes every day. Are you most likely to achieve your goal if you say to yourself…?

A.  I will go through my lecture notes every evening.

B.  I will go through the day’s lecture notes every evening before I eat.

C.  As soon as I get home each evening, I will make a cup of tea and go through the day’s lecture notes.

D.  I will make a cup of tea and go through the day’s lecture notes every day.

To find out the answer, come study with us and take on The Psychology of (Self)-Improvement.