Abstract
Habits are cued by context, not goals — and people’s perceived habit triggers diverge from the actual contextual cues that drive habitual behavior in daily life (Neal, Wood, & Labrecque, 2012).
Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Labrecque, J. S. (2012). How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(2), 492–498. DOI
Key findings
- Context-over-goal triggering: — Supporting Watkins & Nolen-Hoeksema (2014): contexts, but not goals, automatically trigger overt habit performance (Ji & Wood, 2007; Neal et al., 2012).
- Perceived vs actual — Section title in target paper: ‘Discontinuity between habit mechanisms and self-perceptions’ — people misidentify what cues their habits.
Application
When a coach asks a client what triggers evening snacking; the client cites hunger (goal-state) — but Neal et al — open this cite for the study behind the move.