Diefenbacher, Svenne;
Lally, Phillippa;
Gardner, Benjamin;
(2022)
Habit formation in context: Context‐specific and context‐free measures for tracking fruit consumption habit formation and behaviour.
British Journal of Health Psychology
10.1111/bjhp.12637.
(In press).
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Abstract
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.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Habit formation in context: Context‐specific and context‐free measures for tracking fruit consumption habit formation and behaviour |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/bjhp.12637 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12637 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2022 The Authors. British Journal of Health Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | automaticity, behaviour change, fruit consumption, habit, habit formation, health behaviour, measurement, prospective study |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160769 |
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