Changing circumstances, disrupting habits.

TLDR

Habitual behavior relies on recurring stimuli, and when contexts change, cues fail and performance is disrupted. The present research investigated the mechanisms guiding habitual behavior, specifically the stimulus cues that trigger habit performance. The authors examined how stimulus cues trigger habit performance. Students transferring to a new university kept exercising, newspaper reading, and TV watching habits only when contextual cues remained similar, and habit disruption sometimes moved control to intentions, while context changes affected intention favorability but intentions alone did not explain habit disruption, and nonhabitual behavior remained intention-guided regardless of context.

Abstract

The present research investigated the mechanisms guiding habitual behavior, specifically, the stimulus cues that trigger habit performance. When usual contexts for performance change, habits cannot be cued by recurring stimuli, and performance should be disrupted. Thus, the exercising, newspaper reading, and TV watching habits of students transferring to a new university were found to survive the transfer only when aspects of the performance context did not change (e.g., participants continued to read the paper with others). In some cases, the disruption in habits also placed behavior under intentional control so that participants acted on their current intentions. Changes in circumstances also affected the favorability of intentions, but changes in intentions alone could not explain the disruption of habits. Furthermore, regardless of whether contexts changed, nonhabitual behavior was guided by intentions.