The goal-dependent automaticity of drinking habits

• Published in: British journal of social psychology Vol. 44; no. 1; pp. 47 - 63
• Main Authors: Sheeran, Paschal, Aarts, Henk, Custers, Ruud, Rivis, Amanda, Webb, Thomas L., Cooke, Richard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2005; British Psychological Society
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Adolescent; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Alcohol; Alcohol consumption; Alcohol Drinking - psychology; Alcoholic Intoxication - psychology; Alcoholism; Automaticity; Automatism - psychology; Behavioural psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Female; Goal directed; Goals; Habits; Humans; Internal-External Control; Male; Medical sciences; Mental representation; Motivation; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reaction Time; Social Behavior; Social behaviour; Social Environment; Social psychology; Students; Surveys and Questionnaires; Universities; Consumption; Human; Alcoholic beverage; Objective; Social behavior; Theoretical model; Tracking(movable target); Theory of planned behavior
• ISSN: 0144-6665; 2044-8309
• DOI: 10.1348/014466604X23446

In recent treatments of habitual social behaviour, habits are conceptualized as a form of goal‐directed automatic behaviour that are mentally represented as goal‐action links. Three experiments tested this conceptualization in the context of students' drinking (alcohol consumption) habits. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions where either a goal related to drinking behaviour (socializing) was activated, or an unrelated goal was activated. In addition, participants' drinking habits were measured. The dependent variable in Experiments 1 and 2 was readiness to drink, operationalized by speed of responding to the action concept ‘drinking’ in a verb verification task. Experiment 3 used the uptake of a voucher to measure drinking behaviour. Findings supported the view that when habits are established, simply activating a goal related to the focal behaviour automatically elicits that behaviour. These findings are consistent with a goal‐dependent conception of habit. Possibilities for interventions designed to attenuate undesirable habitual behaviours are considered.