Defining and Measuring Habits Across Different Fields of Research

Watson, Poppy

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-55889-4_1

Poppy Watson²

776 Accesses
2 Citations

Abstract

Habits play an important role in our everyday behavioural repertoire, but they are conceptualised and measured differently across different fields of research. In this chapter, I compare the ways that habits are defined and measured by associative learning theorists, health and social psychologists, and those interested in the development of motor skills. The associative or knowledge structures that form once a habit has been acquired are also described and contrasted. Current theoretical debates about the representation of habits are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic

€34.99 /Month

Get 10 units per month
Download Article/Chapter or eBook
1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
Cancel anytime

Buy Now

Chapter: EUR 29.95; Price includes VAT (Germany)

eBook: EUR 171.19; Price includes VAT (Germany)

Softcover Book: EUR 213.99; Price includes VAT (Germany)

Hardcover Book: EUR 213.99; Price includes VAT (Germany)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

') var buybox = document.querySelector("[data-id=id_"+ timestamp +"]").parentNode var buyingOptions = buybox.querySelectorAll(".buying-option") ;[].slice.call(buyingOptions).forEach(initCollapsibles) var buyboxMaxSingleColumnWidth = 480 function initCollapsibles(subscription, index) { var toggle = subscription.querySelector(".buying-option-price") subscription.classList.remove("expanded") var form = subscription.querySelector(".buying-option-form") var priceInfo = subscription.querySelector(".price-info") var buyingOption = toggle.parentElement if (toggle && form && priceInfo) { toggle.setAttribute("role", "button") toggle.setAttribute("tabindex", "0") toggle.addEventListener("click", function (event) { var expandedBuyingOptions = buybox.querySelectorAll(".buying-option.expanded") var buyboxWidth = buybox.offsetWidth ;[].slice.call(expandedBuyingOptions).forEach(function(option) { if (buyboxWidth buyboxMaxSingleColumnWidth) { toggle.click() } else { if (index === 0) { toggle.click() } else { toggle.setAttribute("aria-expanded", "false") form.hidden = "hidden" priceInfo.hidden = "hidden" } } }) } initialStateOpen() if (window.buyboxInitialised) return window.buyboxInitialised = true initKeyControls() })()

Institutional subscriptions

Understanding the Formation of Human Habits: An Analysis of Mechanisms of Habitual Behaviour

Defining Habit in Psychology

The Role of Habits in Maladaptive Behaviour and Therapeutic Interventions

References

Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2000). Habits as knowledge structures: Automaticity in goal-directed behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 53–63.
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Adams, C. D. (1982). Variations in the sensitivity of instrumental responding to reinforcer devaluation. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 34(2), 77–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748208400878
Article Google Scholar
Adams, C. D., & Dickinson, A. (1981). Instrumental responding following reinforcer devaluation. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 33(2), 109–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748108400816
Article Google Scholar
Balleine, B. W., & Dezfouli, A. (2019). Hierarchical action control: Adaptive collaboration between actions and habits. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2735. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02735
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Balleine, B. W., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2010). Human and rodent homologies in action control: Corticostriatal determinants of goal-directed and habitual action. Neuropsychopharmacology, 35(1), 48–69. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2009.131
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Balleine, B. W., & Ostlund, S. B. (2007). Still at the choice-point. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1104(1), 147–171. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1390.006
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Beeken, R. J., Leurent, B., Vickerstaff, V., Wilson, R., Croker, H., Morris, S., Omar, R. Z., Nazareth, I., & Wardle, J. (2017). A brief intervention for weight control based on habit-formation theory delivered through primary care: Results from a randomised controlled trial. International Journal of Obesity, 41(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2016.206
Article Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C. (2021). Comment on Vandaele and Ahmed: Rethinking habits in addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology, 46(4), 687–688. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-00932-0
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Bradfield, L. A., & Balleine, B. W. (2013). Hierarchical and binary associations compete for behavioral control during instrumental biconditional discrimination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 39(1), 2–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030941
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Buabang, E. K., Köster, M., Boddez, Y., Van Dessel, P., De Houwer, J., & Moors, A. (2022). A goal-directed account of action slips: The reliance on old contingencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152, 496. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001280
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Collins, A. G. E., & Cockburn, J. (2020). Beyond dichotomies in reinforcement learning. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 21(10), Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-020-0355-6
Article CAS Google Scholar
Colwill, R. M., & Rescorla, R. A. (1986). Associative structures in instrumental learning. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), Psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 20, pp. 55–104). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-7421(08)60016-X
Chapter Google Scholar
Colwill, R. M., & Rescorla, R. A. (1990). Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning. Animal Learning & Behavior, 18(1), 71–82. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205241
Article Google Scholar
Cushman, F., & Morris, A. (2015). Habitual control of goal selection in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(45), 13817–13822. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506367112
Article CAS Google Scholar
Custers, R., & Aarts, H. (2010). The unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside of conscious awareness. Science, 329(5987), 47–50. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1188595
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
da Silva, C. F., & Hare, T. A. (2020). Humans primarily use model-based inference in the two-stage task. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(10), Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0905-y
Article Google Scholar
Daw, N., Niv, Y., & Dayan, P. (2005). Uncertainty-based competition between prefrontal and dorsolateral striatal systems for behavioral control. Nature Neuroscience, 8(12), 1704–1711. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1560
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Daw, N., Gershman, S. J., Seymour, B., Dayan, P., & Dolan, R. J. (2011). Model-based influences on humans’ choices and striatal prediction errors. Neuron, 69(6), 1204–1215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.02.027
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
De Houwer, J. (2019). On how definitions of habits can complicate habit research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2642. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02642
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
de Wit, S., & Dickinson, A. (2009). Associative theories of goal-directed behaviour: A case for animal–human translational models. Psychological Research, 73(4), 463–476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-009-0230-6
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
de Wit, S., Kindt, M., Knot, S. L., Verhoeven, A. A. C., Robbins, T. W., Gasull-Camos, J., Evans, M., Mirza, H., & Gillan, C. M. (2018). Shifting the balance between goals and habits: Five failures in experimental habit induction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(7), 1043–1065. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000402
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Delamater, A. R., & Oakeshott, S. (2007). Learning about multiple attributes of reward in Pavlovian conditioning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1104(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1390.008
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Dezfouli, A., & Balleine, B. W. (2013). Actions, action sequences and habits: Evidence that goal-directed and habitual action control are hierarchically organized. PLoS Computational Biology, 9(12), e1003364. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003364
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Dezfouli, A., Lingawi, N. W., & Balleine, B. W. (2014). Habits as action sequences: Hierarchical action control and changes in outcome value. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 369(1655), 20130482. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0482
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Dickinson, A. (1985). Actions and habits: The development of behavioural autonomy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 308(1135), 67–78.
Google Scholar
Dickinson, A., & Balleine, B. W. (1994). Motivational control of goal-directed action. Learning & Behavior, 22(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03199951
Article Google Scholar
Dickinson, A., Nicholas, D. J., & Adams, C. D. (1983). The effect of the instrumental training contingency on susceptibility to reinforcer devaluation. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 35(1), 35–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748308400912
Article Google Scholar
Doyon, J., Bellec, P., Amsel, R., Penhune, V., Monchi, O., Carrier, J., Lehéricy, S., & Benali, H. (2009). Contributions of the basal ganglia and functionally related brain structures to motor learning. Behavioural Brain Research, 199(1), 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2008.11.012
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Du, Y., Krakauer, J., & Haith, A. (2021). The relationship between habits and skills in humans. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/9qrgd
Ersche, K. D., Gillan, C. M., Jones, P. S., Williams, G. B., Ward, L. H. E., Luijten, M., de Wit, S., Sahakian, B. J., Bullmore, E. T., & Robbins, T. W. (2016). Carrots and sticks fail to change behavior in cocaine addiction. Science, 352(6292), 1468–1471. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf3700
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Everitt, B. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2005). Neural systems of reinforcement for drug addiction: From actions to habits to compulsion. Nature Neuroscience, 8(11), 1481–1489. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1579
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Everitt, B. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2016). Drug addiction: Updating actions to habits to compulsions ten years on. Annual Review of Psychology, 67(1), 23–50. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033457
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Friedman, N. P., & Robbins, T. W. (2022). The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function. Neuropsychopharmacology, 47(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-021-01132-0
Article Google Scholar
Gardner, B. (2015). A review and analysis of the use of ‘habit’ in understanding, predicting and influencing health-related behaviour. Health Psychology Review, 9(3), 277–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.876238
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Gardner, B., de Bruijn, G.-J., & Lally, P. (2011). A systematic review and meta-analysis of applications of the Self-Report Habit Index to nutrition and physical activity behaviours. Annals of Behavioral Medicine: A Publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, 42(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-011-9282-0
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Gardner, B., Abraham, C., Lally, P., & de Bruijn, G.-J. (2012). Towards parsimony in habit measurement: Testing the convergent and predictive validity of an automaticity subscale of the Self-Report Habit Index. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 9, 102. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-9-102
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Gillan, C. M., Otto, A. R., Phelps, E. A., & Daw, N. D. (2015). Model-based learning protects against forming habits. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 15(3), 523–536. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-015-0347-6
Article Google Scholar
Graybiel, A. M., & Grafton, S. T. (2015). The striatum: Where skills and habits meet. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 7(8), a021691. https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a021691
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Guida, P., Michiels, M., Redgrave, P., Luque, D., & Obeso, I. (2022). An fMRI meta-analysis of the role of the striatum in everyday-life vs laboratory-developed habits. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 141, 104826. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104826
Article Google Scholar
Hagger, M. S., Rebar, A. L., Mullan, B., Lipp, O. V., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2015). The subjective experience of habit captured by self-report indexes may lead to inaccuracies in the measurement of habitual action. Health Psychology Review, 9(3), 296–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2014.959728
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Hardwick, R. M., Forrence, A. D., Krakauer, J. W., & Haith, A. M. (2019). Time-dependent competition between goal-directed and habitual response preparation. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(12), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0725-0
Article Google Scholar
Hikosaka, O., Nakamura, K., Sakai, K., & Nakahara, H. (2002). Central mechanisms of motor skill learning. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 12(2), 217–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-4388(02)00307-0
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Hogarth, L., & Troisi, J. R. (2015). A hierarchical instrumental decision theory of nicotine dependence. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, 23, 165–191. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13665-3_7
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Janacsek, K., Shattuck, K. F., Tagarelli, K. M., Lum, J. A. G., Turkeltaub, P. E., & Ullman, M. T. (2020). Sequence learning in the human brain: A functional neuroanatomical meta-analysis of serial reaction time studies. NeuroImage, 207, 116387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116387
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Judah, G., Gardner, B., & Aunger, R. (2013). Forming a flossing habit: An exploratory study of the psychological determinants of habit formation. British Journal of Health Psychology, 18(2), 338–353. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8287.2012.02086.x
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Keramati, M., Dezfouli, A., & Piray, P. (2011). Speed/accuracy trade-off between the habitual and the goal-directed processes. PLoS Computational Biology, 7(5), e1002055. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002055
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Kothe, E. J., Sainsbury, K., Smith, L., & Mullan, B. A. (2015). Explaining the intention–behaviour gap in gluten-free diet adherence: The moderating roles of habit and perceived behavioural control. Journal of Health Psychology, 20(5), 580–591. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105315576606
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Kruglanski, A. W., & Szumowska, E. (2020). Habitual behavior is goal-driven. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1256–1271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620917676
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Lally, P., & Gardner, B. (2013). Promoting habit formation. Health Psychology Review, 7(sup1), S137–S158. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2011.603640
Article Google Scholar
Lee, S. W., Shimojo, S., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2014). Neural computations underlying arbitration between model-based and model-free learning. Neuron, 81(3), 687–699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2013.11.028
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Luque, D., & Molinero, S. (2020). A critical assessment of the goal replacement hypothesis for habitual behaviour. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rw26a
Maher, J. P., Rebar, A. L., & Dunton, G. F. (2021). The influence of context stability on physical activity and sedentary behaviour habit and behaviour: An ecological momentary assessment study. British Journal of Health Psychology, 26(3), 861–881. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12509
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Mergelsberg, E. L. P., Mullan, B. A., Allom, V., & Scott, A. (2021). An intervention designed to investigate habit formation in a novel health behaviour. Psychology & Health, 36(4), 405–426. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2020.1779272
Article Google Scholar
Miller, K. J., Ludvig, E. A., Pezzulo, G., & Shenhav, A. (2018). Chapter 18—Realigning models of habitual and goal-directed decision-making. In R. Morris, A. Bornstein, & A. Shenhav (Eds.), Goal-directed decision making (pp. 407–428). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812098-9.00018-8
Chapter Google Scholar
Miller, K. J., Shenhav, A., & Ludvig, E. A. (2019). Habits without values. Psychological Review, 126(2), 292–311. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000120
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Moors, A., Boddez, Y., & De Houwer, J. (2017). The power of goal-directed processes in the causation of emotional and other actions. Emotion Review, 9(4), 310–318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073916669595
Article Google Scholar
Nelson, A., & Killcross, S. (2006). Amphetamine exposure enhances habit formation. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(14), 3805–3812. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4305-05.2006
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Ostlund, S. B., & Balleine, B. W. (2007). Selective reinstatement of instrumental performance depends on the discriminative stimulus properties of the mediating outcome. Learning & Behavior, 35(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196073
Article Google Scholar
Papies, E. K., & Aarts, H. (2011). Nonconscious self-regulation, or the automatic pilot of human behavior. In Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 125–142). The Guilford Press.
Google Scholar
Patterson, T. K., & Knowlton, B. J. (2018). Subregional specificity in human striatal habit learning: A meta-analytic review of the fMRI literature. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 20, 75–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.10.005
Article Google Scholar
Pool, E. R., Gera, R., Fransen, A., Perez, O. D., Cremer, A., Aleksic, M., Tanwisuth, S., Quail, S., Ceceli, A. O., Manfredi, D. A., Nave, G., Tricomi, E., Balleine, B., Schonberg, T., Schwabe, L., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2022). Determining the effects of training duration on the behavioral expression of habitual control in humans: A multilaboratory investigation. Learning & Memory, 29(1), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.053413.121
Article Google Scholar
Rescorla, R. A. (1991). Associative relations in instrumental learning: The eighteenth Bartlett memorial lecture. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 43(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640749108401256
Article Google Scholar
Robbins, T. W., & Costa, R. M. (2017). Habits. Current Biology, 27(22), R1200–R1206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.060
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Robertson, E. M. (2007). The serial reaction time task: Implicit motor skill learning? Journal of Neuroscience, 27(38), 10073–10075. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2747-07.2007
Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Shipman, M. L., Trask, S., Bouton, M. E., & Green, J. T. (2018). Inactivation of prelimbic and infralimbic cortex respectively affects minimally-trained and extensively-trained goal-directed actions. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 155, 164–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2018.07.010
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Sjoerds, Z., de Wit, S., van den Brink, W., Robbins, T. W., Beekman, A. T. F., Penninx, B. W. J. H., & Veltman, D. J. (2013). Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for overreliance on habit learning in alcohol-dependent patients. Translational Psychiatry, 3, e337. https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2013.107
Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Sjoerds, Z., Dietrich, A., Deserno, L., de Wit, S., Villringer, A., Heinze, H.-J., Schlagenhauf, F., & Horstmann, A. (2016). Slips of action and sequential decisions: A cross-validation study of tasks assessing habitual and goal-directed action control. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10, 234. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00234
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Sniehotta, F. F., & Presseau, J. (2012). The habitual use of the self-report habit index. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 43(1), 139–140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-011-9305-x
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Turner, K. M., & Parkes, S. L. (2020). Prefrontal regulation of behavioural control: Evidence from learning theory and translational approaches in rodents. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 118, 27–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.07.010
Article Google Scholar
Vandaele, Y., Mahajan, N. R., Ottenheimer, D. J., Richard, J. M., Mysore, S. P., & Janak, P. H. (2019). Distinct recruitment of dorsomedial and dorsolateral striatum erodes with extended training. ELife, 8, e49536. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.49536
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Verhoeven, A. A. C., & de Wit, S. (2018). The role of habits in maladaptive behaviour and therapeutic interventions. In B. Verplanken (Ed.), The psychology of habit: Theory, mechanisms, change, and contexts (pp. 285–303). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97529-0_16
Chapter Google Scholar
Verhoeven, A. A. C., Adriaanse, M. A., Evers, C., & de Ridder, D. T. D. (2012). The power of habits: Unhealthy snacking behaviour is primarily predicted by habit strength. British Journal of Health Psychology, 17(4), 758–770. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8287.2012.02070.x
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Verplanken, B., & Orbell, S. (2003). Reflections on past behavior: A self-report index of habit strength. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(6), 1313–1330. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01951.x
Article Google Scholar
Watson, P., & de Wit, S. (2018). Current limits of experimental research into habits and future directions. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 20(Supplement C), 33–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.09.012
Article Google Scholar
Watson, P., van Wingen, G., & de Wit, S. (2018). Conflicted between goal-directed and habitual control, an fMRI investigation. eNeuro, 5(4), ENEURO.0240. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0240-18.2018
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Watson, P., Gladwin, T. E., Verhoeven, A. A. C., & de Wit, S. (2022a). Investigating habits in humans with a symmetrical outcome-revaluation task. Behavior Research Methods, 55, 2687. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01922-4
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Watson, P., O’Callaghan, C., Perkes, I., Bradfield, L., & Turner, K. (2022b). Making habits measurable beyond what they are not: A focus on associative dual-process models. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 142, 104869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104869
Article Google Scholar
Webb, T. L., Sheeran, P., & Luszczynska, A. (2009). Planning to break unwanted habits: Habit strength moderates implementation intention effects on behaviour change. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48(3), 507–523. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466608X370591
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Wood, W., & Rünger, D. (2016). Psychology of habit. Annual Review of Psychology, 67(1), 289–314. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Wood, W., Mazar, A., & Neal, D. T. (2022). Habits and goals in human behavior: Separate but interacting systems. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(2), 590–605. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621994226
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Wouters, S., Thewissen, V., Duif, M., van Bree, R. J., Lechner, L., & Jacobs, N. (2018). Habit strength and between-meal snacking in daily life: The moderating role of level of education. Public Health Nutrition, 21(14), 2595–2605. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980018001283
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
Yang, C. S., Cowan, N. J., & Haith, A. M. (2022). Control becomes habitual early on when learning a novel motor skill. Journal of Neurophysiology, 128(5), 1278–1291. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00273.2022
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Yin, H. H., Knowlton, B. J., & Balleine, B. W. (2004). Lesions of dorsolateral striatum preserve outcome expectancy but disrupt habit formation in instrumental learning. The European Journal of Neuroscience, 19(1), 181–189.
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Yin, H. H., Knowlton, B. J., & Balleine, B. W. (2005). Blockade of NMDA receptors in the dorsomedial striatum prevents action–outcome learning in instrumental conditioning. European Journal of Neuroscience, 22(2), 505–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005.04219.x
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Zhang, C., Vanschoren, J., van Wissen, A., Lakens, D., de Ruyter, B., & IJsselsteijn, W. A. (2022). Theory-based habit modeling for enhancing behavior prediction in behavior change support systems. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 32(3), 389–415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-022-09326-x
Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Download references

Acknowledgements

Dr Poppy Watson was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE200100591) during the preparation of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Psychology, University Technology of Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
Poppy Watson

Authors

Poppy Watson
View author publications
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Poppy Watson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Laboratoire de Neurosciences Expérimentales et Cliniques, Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U-1084, Poitiers, France
Youna Vandaele

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Watson, P. (2024). Defining and Measuring Habits Across Different Fields of Research. In: Vandaele, Y. (eds) Habits. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55889-4_1

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55889-4_1
Published: 30 April 2024
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-55888-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-55889-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics