Habits (or wonts) are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously.[1][2][3] Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an organism, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding to that stimulus in varied manners. Habits are sometimes compulsory.[3][4] The process by which new behaviours become automatic is habit formation. Examples of habit formation are the following: If you instinctively reach for a cigarette the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit. Also, if you lace up your running shoes and hit the streets as soon as you get home, you've acquired a habit. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioural patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways.[5]
Contents |
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes habitual. As behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase in the link between the context and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behavior in that context.[6] Features of an automatic behavior are all or some of: efficiency, lack of awareness, unintentionality, uncontrollability.[7]
Habit formation is modelled as an increase in automaticity with number of repetitions up to an asymptote.[8][9][10]
The habit–goal interface is constrained by the particular manner in which habits are learned and represented in memory. Specifically, the associative learning underlying habits is characterized by the slow, incremental accrual of information over time in procedural memory.[11] Habits can either benefit or hurt the goals a person sets for themselves.
Goals guide habits most fundamentally by providing the initial outcome-oriented impetus for response repetition. In this sense, habits often are a vestige of past goal pursuit.[11]
A bad habit is a negative behavior pattern. Common examples include: procrastination, fidgeting, overspending, nail-biting.[12]
A key factor in distinguishing a bad habit from an addiction or mental disease is the element of willpower. If a person still seems to have control over the behavior then it is just a habit.[13] Good intentions are able to override the negative effect of bad habits but their effect seems to be independent and additive—the bad habits remain but are subdued rather than cancelled.[14]
There is an arbitrary threshold at which the pain or destructiveness of doing something conflicts with the negative tendencies of any habit. It is this threshold point that The Habit Code is based around. According to author Bill Borcherdt, the best time to correct a bad habit is immediately, before it becomes established. So, bad habits are best prevented from developing in childhood.[15]
There are many techniques for removing bad habits once they have become established. One example is withdrawal of reinforcers—identifying and removing the factors which trigger the habit and encourage its persistence.[16] The basal ganglia appears to remember the context that triggers a habit, meaning they can be revived if triggers reappear.[17]
|
|