Habit formation following routine-based versus time-based cue planning : A randomized controlled trial

© 2021 The Authors. British Journal of Health Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society..

OBJECTIVES: Habit formation has been identified as one of the key determinants of behaviour change. To initiate habit formation, self-regulation interventions can support individuals to form a cue-behaviour plan and to repeatedly enact the plan in the same context. This randomized controlled trial aimed to model habit formation of an everyday nutrition behaviour and examined whether habit formation and plan enactment differ when individuals plan to enact their behaviour in response to a routine-based versus time-based cue.

DESIGN: Following a baseline assessment, N = 192 adults (aged 18-77 years) were randomly assigned to a routine-based cue or a time-based cue planning intervention, in which they selected an everyday nutrition behaviour and linked it to a daily routine or a time cue.

METHODS: Participants responded to daily questionnaires over 84 days assessing plan enactment and the behaviour's automaticity (as an indicator of habit formation). Multilevel models with days nested in participants were fitted.

RESULTS: As indicated by asymptotic curves, it took a median of 59 days for participants who successfully formed habits to reach peak automaticity. Group-level analyses revealed that both routine-based and time-based cue planning led to increases in automaticity and plan enactment, but no between-condition differences were found. Repeated plan enactment was a key predictor for automaticity.

CONCLUSIONS: Linking one's nutrition behaviour to a daily routine or a specific time was similarly effective for habit formation. Interventions should encourage persons to repeatedly carry out their planned behaviour in response to the planned cue to facilitate habit formation.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2021

Erschienen:

2021

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:26

Enthalten in:

British journal of health psychology - 26(2021), 3 vom: 15. Sept., Seite 807-824

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Keller, Jan [VerfasserIn]
Kwasnicka, Dominika [VerfasserIn]
Klaiber, Patrick [VerfasserIn]
Sichert, Lena [VerfasserIn]
Lally, Phillippa [VerfasserIn]
Fleig, Lena [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Automaticity
Habit formation
Journal Article
Multilevel model
Nutrition
Plan enactment
Randomized Controlled Trial
Randomized controlled trial

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 13.10.2021

Date Revised 13.10.2021

published: Print-Electronic

DRKS: DRKS00016720

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1111/bjhp.12504

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM319690768