Habit and persistence

Abstract

Voluntary behaviors (operants) can come in two varieties: Goal‐directed actions, which are emitted based on the remembered value of the reinforcer, and habits, which are evoked by antecedent cues and performed without the reinforcer's value in active memory. The two are perhaps most clearly distinguished with the reinforcer‐devaluation test: Goal‐directed actions are suppressed when the reinforcer is separately devalued and responding is tested in extinction, and habitual behaviors are not. But what is the function of habit learning? Habits are often thought to be strong and unusually persistent. The present selective review examines this idea by asking whether habits identified by the reinforcer‐devaluation test are more resistant to extinction, resistant to the effects of other contingency change, vulnerable to relapse, resistant to the weakening effects of context change, or permanently in place once they are learned. Surprisingly little evidence supports the idea that habits are permanent or more persistent. Habits are more context‐specific than goal‐directed actions are. Methods that make behavior persistent do not necessarily work by encouraging habit. The function of habit learning may not be to make a behavior strong or more persistent but to make it automatic and efficient in a particular context.

Poor Reliability and Validity of Habit Effects in Substance Use and Novel Insights from a Goal-Directed Perspective

“…In fact, the extinction test does not appear to model any circumstances in the real world that substance users would commonly find themselves in, limiting the generalization of theories arising from the extinction test to behavior in the real world. As further pointed out by Bouton [71], the quick return of outcome-sensitivity in reacquisition tests indicates that habits are not stable and therefore not the end stage of behavior. Here again, habits do not seem to be a suitable model for the so-called compulsive stage in substance use disorders.…”

“…Results from these reacquisition tests typically show a sensitivity to devaluation again (e.g., [26]; see also [71]). Given that in the natural environment of substance users, outcomes arising from substance use behavior do remain present (i.e., substances are consumed, and positive and negative consequences continue to follow), the reacquisition test has greater ecological validity than the extinction test.…”

“…Yet substance users in their natural environment typically have a choice between a range of different behavioral options, which have a mixture of short-and long-term rewards and costs. Additionally, the transition of behavior from outcome-sensitive 12 to outcome-insensitive is often constrained to the context in which the behavior was overtrained and does not generalize to other contexts [71]. However, substance use frequently manifests across diverse environments, indicating a broader range of influences beyond habit.…”

The temporal trajectories of habit decay in daily life: An intensive longitudinal study on four health-risk behaviors

“…For example, estimating time for habit disruption to occur based on when the change in habit strength during a 7-day period is less than 0.1 seems to perform well when habit strength initially decreases rapidly and later slows down (see Present findings indicating relatively short duration of habit disruption for some participants challenges the conventional assumption of habits being difficult to break. It may be that habits are not consistently as persistent as conventionally perceived, as laboratory findings suggest the case may be (Bouton, 2024). This short duration may also be attributable to sample characteristics (e.g.…”