Behavior change after context disruption: Opportunities and pitfalls

Abstract

Many behaviors are performed automatically in response to contextual cues rather than conscious intentions, which can make behavior change challenging. The combined discontinuity and self-activation hypotheses predict that disruption to a context that cues behaviors can provide opportunity for behavior change guided by intentions rather than contextual cues. In this study, we asked an online sample of participants (N = 452) to report on desired change in the frequency of new, unwanted, or potentially habitual behaviors following a contextual disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find a distinction between new ‘start’ behaviors and unwanted ‘stop’ behaviors where new behaviors appear more personally meaningful (i.e. higher in autonomous motivation and positive affective attitude) than unwanted or potentially habitual behaviors. Our results suggest that behavior change theory and interventions that acknowledge differential processes between starting new behaviors and stopping old unwanted behaviors would provide greater insights for behavior science.