Habit formation in context: Context‐specific and context‐free measures for tracking fruit consumption habit formation and behaviour

• Published in: British journal of health psychology Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 499 - 512
• Main Authors: Diefenbacher, Svenne, Lally, Phillippa, Gardner, Benjamin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.05.2023
• Subjects: automaticity; Behavior change; behaviour change; Change agents; Food consumption; Fruit; fruit consumption; habit; habit formation; Habits; health behaviour; Humans; Intervention; Measurement; Prospective Studies; prospective study; Retrospective Studies; Tracking; habit; prospective study; fruit consumption; behaviour change; health behaviour; automaticity; habit formation; measurement
• ISSN: 1359-107X; 2044-8287; 2044-8287
• DOI: 10.1111/bjhp.12637

Objectives Interventions promoting habitual fruit consumption have the potential to bring about long‐term behaviour change. Assessing the effectiveness of such interventions requires adequate habit and behaviour measures. Habits are based on learned context‐behaviour associations, so measures that incorporate context should be more sensitive to expected habit and behaviour changes than context‐free measures. This study compared context‐specific and context‐free measures of fruit consumption habit and behaviour following a 3‐week habit formation intervention. Design Prospective online study (n = 58). Methods Behaviour frequency was assessed across five timepoints, retrospectively (Time 1 [T1], T5) or via daily diary data (uploaded weekly at T2, T3 and T4). Habit strength was assessed before (T1) and immediately after the intervention (T4), and again 2 weeks later (T5). Analyses of variance were run, with time and context specificity as within‐subject factors, and habit and behaviour frequency as dependent measures. Results An interaction between time and context specificity was found in both analyses (habit: F(2,114) = 12.848, p < .001, part.η2 = .184; behaviour: F(2,114) = 6.714, p = .002, part.η2 = .105). Expected habit formation patterns 5 weeks post‐baseline were only detected by the context‐specific habit measure. Likewise, increased behaviour frequency was only found when the target context was specified (p's < .001). Conclusions Assessments of purposeful dietary habit and behaviour change attempts should incorporate context‐specific measurement.