Predicting Behavior From Actions in the Past: Repeated Decision Making or a Matter of Habit?

This paper summarizes research on determinants of repeated behaviors, and the decision processes underlying them. The present research focuses on travel mode choices as an example of such behaviors. It is proposed that when behavior is performed repeatedly and becomes habitual, it is guided by automated cognitive processes, rather than being preceded by elaborate decision processes (i.e., a decision based on attitudes and intentions). First, current attitude-behavior models are discussed, and the role of habit in these models is examined. Second, research is presented on the decision processes preceding travel mode choices. Based on the present theoretical and empirical overview, it is concluded that frequently performed behavior is often a matter of habit, thereby establishing a boundary condition for the applicability of attitude-behavior models. However, more systematic research is required to disentangle the role of habit in attitude-behavior models and to learn more about the cognitive processes underlying habitual behavior.     

Being flexible or rigid in goal-directed behavior: When positive affect implicitly motivates the pursuit of goals or means

Building on previous research on the role of positive affect as implicit motivator we investigated both flexibility and rigidity in goal-directed behavior. Given that goal-directed behavior can be represented in terms of goals or means, we suggest that goal-directed behavior is more flexible in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to reach the goal, but is more rigid in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to perform a specific means. Three experiments corroborated this idea: the speed of switching from a learned goal-directed means to a new means was facilitated when positive affect was attached to the representation of the goal, whereas this switching was slowed down when positive affect was attached to the representation of the learned means. Together, these findings provide new insights into the occurrence of flexibility and rigidity in implicitly motivated goal-directed behavior.     

Testosterone affects gaze aversion from angry faces outside of conscious awareness

Throughout vertebrate phylogeny, testosterone has motivated animals to obtain and maintain social dominance-a fact suggesting that unconscious primordial brain mechanisms are involved in social dominance. In humans, however, the prevailing view is that the neocortex is in control of primordial drives, and testosterone is thought to promote social dominance via conscious feelings of superiority, indefatigability, strength, and anger. Here we show that testosterone administration in humans prolongs dominant staring into the eyes of threatening faces that are viewed outside of awareness, without affecting consciously experienced feelings. These findings reveal that testosterone motivates social dominance in humans in much the same ways that it does in other vertebrates: involuntarily, automatically, and unconsciously.     

Memory and attention for social threat: anxious hypercoding-avoidance and submissive gaze aversion

Rivalry for dominance is a recurrent challenge in human social interaction. During these social dominance interactions, some people rapidly break eye contact, whereas others merely try to avoid such eye-to-eye confrontations. The first is an example of submissive gaze aversion, whereas the second reflects anxious gaze avoidance. We tested these distinct forms of gaze behavior within a social-memory setting and show that anxious individuals vigilantly attend to, superiorly remember, and subsequently avoid social threats (i.e., angry faces). Furthermore, submissive individuals, as indexed by high trait anxiety and low trait anger, exhibit rapid gaze aversion from facial anger. Mechanisms of hypervigilance-avoidance thus seem to underlie natural gaze behavior and enhanced memory for threat in anxiety. Accordingly, we propose the term hypercoding-avoidance, which describes how anxious individuals habitually scan their immediate social environment for threat, remember its location, and subsequently avoid it. Moreover, this is the first experimental evidence showing that submissive gaze aversion is distinct from anxious gaze avoidance.     

Experiences of shame by race and culture: An exploratory study

This study explored experiences of shame in the context of racial and cultural belonging. Participants were a multiracial purposive sample of 11 South Africans (five females and six males, four white, two coloured, two Indian and three black Africans; in the age range between 40 to 61 years). The participants completed a semi-structured interview on their perceptions of shame in the context of family and community. The interview data were analysed utilising interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Participants from all racial groups considered shame experiences primarily in relation to violation of family and community norms and values. Findings show that male white Afrikaans-speaking participants narrated shameful experiences mainly with regard to the violation of religious (Calvinist) norms and values. Furthermore, the violation of racially constructed boundaries was also likely with females with an Indian and white Afrikaans culture background. Overall, the findings suggest white Afrikaans culture to be less shaming of individuals in comparison to black, coloured, or Indian cultures. Shame beliefs appear to be culturally nuanced in their salience to members or racial-ethno groupings.     

Through the eyes of dieters: Biased size perception of food following tempting food primes

Why do some dieters succeed in controlling their diet while others do not? This research focused on a perceptual process—size perception of food objects—that may moderate the success of dieters in self-control dilemmas. We assessed successful and unsuccessful dieters' size perception of palatable food (Study 1) and diet-food (Study 2) after pre-exposing them to tempting food primes. Dieters perceived palatable food as bigger when primed with tempting food (vs. control prime), regardless of self-regulatory success in dieting (Study 1). Palatable food thus looms larger for both unsuccessful and successful dieters when in a “hot” state. In contrast, the perceived size of diet-food was increased by a tempting food prime only for successful dieters, but decreased for unsuccessful dieters (Study 2). These results are interpreted in terms of differences in the mental accessibility of competing goals (eating enjoyment vs. dieting) in successful vs. unsuccessful dieters. Indeed, when the dieting goal was made accessible for all dieters by a diet prime, even unsuccessful dieters perceived diet-food as bigger (Study 2). This research provides insight into a perceptual process that may be detrimental or beneficial in resolving self-control conflicts in the domain of eating and dieting behavior—and probably other domains of self-control as well.     

There is a fire burning in my heart: the role of causal attribution in affect transfer

The role of causal attribution in affect transfer of primes was addressed by examining the consequences of explicit evaluation of primes within the framework of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP; Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). We reasoned that affect transfer occurs when primed affect remains diffuse and not bound to a specific object, hence capable of freely colouring subsequent evaluations of ambiguous objects. Accordingly, we propose that when people explicitly evaluate the prime, affect is clearly bound to the prime and becomes less capable of influencing subsequent judgements. Supporting this notion, affect transfer in the AMP was observed when participants ignored the primes, thereby keeping the primed affect relatively unbound. However, this effect disappeared when participants explicitly evaluated the primes before target stimuli were presented. Implications of these findings in determining how and when affect arising from one object carries over to another is discussed.     

As pleasure unfolds. Hedonic responses to tempting food

Why do chronic dieters often violate their dieting goals? One possibility is that they experience stronger hedonic responses to tempting food than normal eaters do. We scrutinized hedonic processing in dieters and normal eaters (a) by manipulating food preexposure and (b) by assessing both immediate and delayed hedonic responses to tempting food with an adapted affect-misattribution procedure. Without food preexposure, dieters showed less positive hedonic responses than normal eaters (Study 1). When preexposed to tempting-food stimuli, however, dieters exhibited more positive delayed hedonic responses than normal eaters (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, delayed hedonic responding was meaningfully related to self-reported power of food and state cravings (Study 2). These findings suggest that dieters experience difficulties in down-regulating hedonic affect when in a "hot" state and that self-regulation research may benefit from a greater emphasis on temporal dynamics rather than static differences.     

Breaking and creating habits on the working floor: A field-experiment on the power of implementation intentions

Previous research has shown that implementation intentions are effective tools to promote new behavior. The present study aimed to provide the first evidence that conscious planning is an effective tool in replacing well-learned habits with new habits. This was tested in a field-experiment on repetitive behavior in the domain of recycling, using 109 employees of a tele-company as participants. Recycling behavior of the participants was observed by the actual amount of paper and the number of plastic cups in their personal wastebaskets. Following a pre-measure, participants were assigned to either implementation intention conditions, conditions in which an eye-catching facility was placed to promote recycling behavior, or control conditions. Recycling behavior was substantially improved in the facility as well as the implementation intention conditions in week 1 and week 2 and still 2 months after the manipulation. These data supported our hypothesis that planning breaks down unwanted habits and creates new ones.     

From Homeostatic to Hedonic Theories of Eating: Self-Regulatory Failure in Food-Rich Environments

Psychological theories of weight regulation are based on homeostatic feedback assumptions. They mostly attribute the cause of overweight and obesity to lowered sensitivity to internal hunger and satiety cues. Based on the assumption that human food consumption in food-rich environments is increasingly driven by pleasure rather than need for calories, a goal conflict theory of hedonic eating is presented. This theory is not only supported by the outcome of our own research programme but can also account for findings of the research conducted in the context of other psychological theories. Some implications for weight loss strategies are discussed.
Les théories psychologiques sur la régulation du poids sont basées sur des hypothèses d'une rétroaction homéostasique. Elles attribuent généralement la cause de la surcharge pondérale et de l'obésitéà une sensibilité interne amoindrie à la faim et aux indicateurs de satiété. Reposant sur l'hypothèse que la consommation alimentaire humaine dans des environnements riches en nourriture est de plus en plus guidée par le plaisir plutôt que par le besoin de calories, une théorie "goal conflict theory of hedonic eating" est présentée. Cette théorie qui ne s'appuie pas seulement sur les résultats de notre propre programme de recherches, peut aussi expliquer les résultats d'études réalisées dans le cadre d'autres théories psychologiques. Des implications concernant des stratégies de perte de poids sont discutées.