Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Can't Control Yourself? Monitor Those Bad Habits on Behalf Of: Society for Personality and Social Psychology

What strategies can people use to control unwanted habits? Past work has focused on controlling other kinds of automatic impulses, especially temptations. The nature of habit cuing calls for certain self-control strategies. Because the slow-to-change memory trace of habits is not amenable to change or reinterpretation, successful habit control involves inhibiting the unwanted response when activated in memory. In support, two episode-sampling diary studies demonstrated that bad habits, unlike responses to temptations, were controlled most effectively through spontaneous use of vigilant monitoring (thinking “don’t do it,” watching carefully for slipups). No other strategy was useful in controlling strong habits, despite that stimulus control was effective at inhibiting responses to temptations. A subsequent experiment showed that vigilant monitoring aids habit control, not by changing the strength of the habit memory trace but by heightening inhibitory, cognitive control processes. The implications of these findings for behavior change interventions are discussed.

[1]  Mark E. Bouton,et al.  A learning theory perspective on lapse, relapse, and the maintenance of behavior change. , 2000, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association.

[2]  Ayelet Fishbach,et al.  PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Self-Control in Action : Implicit Dispositions Toward Goals and Away From Temptations , 2006 .

[3]  B. Baars.  Experimental slips and human error : exploring the architecture of volition , 1992 .

[4]  D. Kavanagh,et al.  Imaginary relish and exquisite torture: the elaborated intrusion theory of desire. , 2005, Psychological review.

[5]  D. Guevremont,et al.  Contemporary Behavior Therapy , 1983 .

[6]  J. Reason.  Cognitive Underspecification Its Variety and Consequences , 1992 .

[7]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: does self-control resemble a muscle? , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[8]  J. de Houwer,et al.  Automaticity: a theoretical and conceptual analysis. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[9]  D M Wegner,et al.  Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[10]  E. Higgins,et al.  Beyond pleasure and pain. , 1997, The American psychologist.

[11]  E. Ebbesen,et al.  Attention in delay of gratification. , 1970 .

[12]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Depletion Makes the Heart Grow Less Helpful: Helping as a Function of Self-Regulatory Energy and Genetic Relatedness , 2008, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[13]  David T. Neal,et al.  The habitual consumer. , 2009 .

[14]  P. Sheeran,et al.  Planning to break unwanted habits: habit strength moderates implementation intention effects on behaviour change. , 2009, The British journal of social psychology.

[15]  Wendy Wood,et al.  Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  K. Witkiewitz,et al.  Relapse prevention for alcohol and drug problems: that was Zen, this is Tao. , 2004, The American psychologist.

[17]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Data analysis in social psychology. , 1998 .

[18]  Y. Trope,et al.  The substitutability of external control and self-control , 2005 .

[19]  L. Jacoby,et al.  Prejudice and perception: the role of automatic and controlled processes in misperceiving a weapon. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  Christian H. Jordan,et al.  Motivation by positive or negative role models: regulatory focus determines who will best inspire us. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  L. Jacoby.  A process dissociation framework: Separating automatic from intentional uses of memory , 1991 .

[22]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Self-Regulation Failure: An Overview , 1996 .

[23]  E B Ebbesen,et al.  Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. , 1972, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  M. Gluck,et al.  Interactive memory systems in the human brain , 2001, Nature.

[25]  J. de Houwer,et al.  Automatic processing of dominance and submissiveness. , 2005, Experimental psychology.

[26]  L L Jacoby,et al.  Separating habit and recollection: memory slips, process dissociations, and probability matching. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[27]  H. Rosenberg,et al.  Effect of brief imagery interventions on craving in college student smokers , 2007 .

[28]  F. E. Satterthwaite.  Synthesis of variance , 1941 .

[29]  P. Dayan,et al.  Uncertainty-based competition between prefrontal and dorsolateral striatal systems for behavioral control , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[30]  W. Mischel,et al.  Cognitive appraisals and transformations in delay behavior. , 1975 .

[31]  J. Prochaska,et al.  In Search of How People Change: Applications to Addictive Behaviors , 1992, The American psychologist.

[32]  B. Verplanken,et al.  Habit, attitude, and planned behaviour : is habit an empty construct or an interesting case of goal-directed automaticity? , 1999 .

[33]  E. Higgins,et al.  Achievement orientations from subjective histories of success: Promotion pride versus prevention pride , 2001 .

[34]  Brian Wansink,et al.  Mindless Eating , 2006 .

[35]  J. Metcalfe,et al.  A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower. , 1999, Psychological review.

[36]  Norman S. Endler,et al.  Desire for control. Personality, social and clinical perspectives , 1993 .

[37]  J. Polivy.  The Effects of Behavioral Inhibition: Integrating Internal Cues, Cognition, Behavior, and Affect , 1998 .

[38]  Satterthwaite Fe.  An approximate distribution of estimates of variance components. , 1946 .

[39]  F. E. Satterthwaite.  An approximate distribution of estimates of variance components. , 1946, Biometrics.

[40]  David T. Neal,et al.  A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. , 2007, Psychological review.

[41]  D. Wegner,et al.  Thought suppression. , 2000, Annual review of psychology.

[42]  David T. Neal,et al.  Habits—A Repeat Performance , 2006 .

[43]  Anthony S. Bryk,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[44]  G. Loewenstein.  Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior , 1996 .

[45]  L L Jacoby,et al.  Separating habit and recollection in young and older adults: effects of elaborative processing and distinctiveness. , 1999, Psychology and aging.

[46]  Larry L. Jacoby,et al.  Recollection and familiarity: Process-dissociation. , 2000 .

[47]  Wendy Wood,et al.  Purchase and Consumption Habits: Not Necessarily What You Intend , 2007 .

[48]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[49]  D. Wegner.  When the Antidote is the Poison: Ironic Mental Control Processes , 1997 .

[50]  D. Norman.  Categorization of action slips. , 1981 .

[51]  Y. Trope,et al.  Counteractive self-control in overcoming temptation. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[52]  W. Mischel,et al.  Delay of gratification in children. , 1989, Science.

[53]  R. Baumeister,et al.  High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. , 2004, Journal of personality.

[54]  Marika Tiggemann,et al.  The nature of imagery processes underlying food cravings. , 2005, British journal of health psychology.