Psychology of Habit | Annual Review of Psychology

Vol. 67:289-314 (Volume publication date January 2016) First published online as a Review in Advance on September 10, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417 Wendy Wood and Dennis Rünger Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1061; email: wendy.wood@usc.edu, dennis.ruenger@gmail.com As the proverbial creatures of habit, people tend to repeat the same behaviors in recurring contexts. This review characterizes habits in terms of their cognitive, motivational, and neurobiological properties. In so doing, we identify three ways that habits interface with deliberate goal pursuit: First, habits form as people pursue goals by repeating the same responses in a given context. Second, as outlined in computational models, habits and deliberate goal pursuit guide actions synergistically, although habits are the efficient, default mode of response. Third, people tend to infer from the frequency of habit performance that the behavi

Vol. 67:289-314 (Volume publication date January 2016) First published online as a Review in Advance on September 10, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417 Wendy Wood and Dennis Rünger Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1061; email: wendy.wood@usc.edu, dennis.ruenger@gmail.com As the proverbial creatures of habit, people tend to repeat the same behaviors in recurring contexts. This review characterizes habits in terms of their cognitive, motivational, and neurobiological properties. In so doing, we identify three ways t