As Time Goes By
Over the past few months, the CTP has taken a quick break from our monthly newsletters. However, we hope you’ll be happy to hear we’ve caught up on our summer work (and our sunshine) and can turn our minds once again to the question of how to raise awareness of sustainable travel.
Without delving too much into introspection, by missing one or two newsletters we’re quickly reminded of a well-publicised paper released in 2009 by Philippa Lally and colleagues. Lally et al. found 96 people who were interested in starting a new healthy behaviour in their lives; such as drinking water, eating fruit or exercise schedules. They were asked to complete daily entries as they went, rating how natural and automatic these new behaviours felt.
Results show the more automatic behaviour - the more resilient and habit-like it becomes. The team found that over time, people developed their habits as they felt more natural to perform them. Interestingly, they were able to look at the results and state the amount of time needed on average for habits to form. A glass of water at breakfast became natural after 18 days, and a tougher habit of 50 sit-ups before breakfast felt normal after around 100 days (not surprising really!)
The findings are interesting enough, but reassuringly for professionals trying to change behaviour (and those who have a cheeky snack during a diet) missing a day of the activity did not hold the formation of the habit back. People could still form a strong habit even after a natural slip up. As with any plan it’s nice to have a timeline – but how do we stick to it? How can we be sure that people will get through the days of creating a habit without too many lapses?
Recently published work from Quinn et al. (2010) suggests that “vigilant monitoring” is the best way for preventing bad habits. By looking at strategies used by students giving up a range of habits, they show that people who acknowledge their temptation and resist were more successful than those who tried to ignore temptations, or tried to distract themselves.
Of course, that sounds quite tiring - especially in the weeks leading to the activity becoming automatic. What we need is some motivation, some inspiration to build our resolve. The answer may come from Koo & Fishbach (2008) who wanted to know what information people need when working to a goal. They found that when we lack commitment, a reminder of achievements to date is better inspiration than what is left to achieve (e.g. how much weight we’ve lost, not the amount to go until our ideal weight).
These three pieces of work lay out a plan for creating a sustainable habit. It takes some time for complex behaviours (such as cycling or taking the bus) to become automatic, but we can resist the habitual car choice by questioning our temptation, and looking at how far we’ve come in trying a new mode if we’re tired and low on resolve. Good feedback programs could give people the drive to carry on, and celebrating their work gives people the will to continue. Programs such as JamBustingJune.com allow people to track online how their sustainable travel is coming along, and have shown some great results. By giving people a little something back to keep them working towards that automatic habit stage – just so they don’t drop off the radar for a few months.
If you’d like to find out more how the Centre for Transport and Psychology can help with attitude and behaviour change programs, you can reach us at CTP@jmp.co.uk, or visit our website www.vctp.org for more information.
