Habit (psychology)

Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously, without directly thinking consciously about them.^[1][2][3] Habitual behavior sometimes goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting them, because it is often unnecessary to engage in self-analysis when undertaking in 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.

In animals

In animals, behavior is controlled by the endocrine system and the nervous system. The complexity of the behavior of an organism is related to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with complex nervous systems have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior. Behaviors can be either innate or learned.

In psychology

Human behavior (and that of other organisms and mechanisms) can be common, unusual, acceptable, or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. In sociology, behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people and thus is the most basic human action, although can play a part in diagnosis of disorders such as autism. Animal behavior is studied in comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology and sociobiology.

Behavior became an important construct in early 20th century Psychology with the advent of the paradigm known subsequently as "behaviorism". Behaviorism was a reaction against "faculty" psychology which purported to see into or understand the mind without the benefit of scientific testing. Behaviorism insisted on working only with what can be seen or manipulated and in the early views of John B. Watson, a founder of the field, nothing was inferred as to the nature of the entity that produced the behavior. Subsequent modifications of Watson's perspective and that of "classical conditioning" (see under Ivan Pavlov) led to the rise of operant conditioning or "radical behaviorism," a theory advocated by B.F. Skinner, which took over the academic establishment up through the 1950s and was synonymous with "behaviorism" for many.

For studies on behavior, ethograms are used.

Outside psychology

Behavior outside of psychology includes physical property and chemical reactions.

Behavior as used in computer science is an anthropomorphic construct that assigns “life” to the activities carried out by a computer, computer application, or computer code in response to stimuli, such as user input. Also, "a behavior" is a reusable block of computer code or script that, when applied to an object (computer science), especially a graphical one, causes it to respond to user input in meaningful patterns or to operate independently. Also, behavior is a value that changes over time ^[1] (one of the key concepts in functional reactive programming). The term can also be applied to some degree to functions in mathematics, referring to the anatomy of curves.

In environmental modeling and especially in hydrology, a behavioral model means a model that is acceptably consistent with observed natural processes, i.e., that simulates well, for example, observed river discharge. It is a key concept of the so-called Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology to quantify how uncertain environmental predictions are.

Formation

Habit formation is the process by which a behaviour becomes habitual. As behaviours 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 behaviour in that context.^[5] Features of an automatic behaviour are all or some of: efficiency, lack of awareness, unintentionality, uncontrollability.^[6]

Habit formation is modelled as an increase in automaticity with number of repetitions up to an asymptote.^[7][8][9]

Author John Tesh advises that it takes about 21 days to establish or break a habit.^[10]

Habits and goals

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 set 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.

Bad habits

A bad habit is a negative behaviour pattern. Common examples include: procrastination, fidgeting, overspending, nail-biting.^[12]

Will and intention

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 behaviour 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.

Eliminating bad habits

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

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. The basal ganglia appears to remember the context that triggers a habit, meaning they can be revived if triggers reappear.