Reducing the Influence of Habits by Intentional Forgetting
Michaéla C. Schippers · Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) · 2008
Previous research has shown that when people have a strong habit for reaching a goal through a particular behavior, mental activation of the goal automatically leads to activation of the habitual behavior. As a result, when a strong habit exists, intentions do not influence behavior. To investigate whether the automatic activation of habitual means upon goal activation can be weakened, we tested whether the think/nothink paradigm introduced by Anderson and Green (2001) can cause inhibition of habitual behaviors. Participants were instructed to suppress the thought of the habitual behavior upon seeing the corresponding goal. Subsequently, inhibition of this behavior was measured with a recognition task. Results suggest that suppression lead to reduced activation for non-habitual means but not for habitual means; these effects were only found for participants who complied with suppression instructions. Results are discussed in terms of the paradigm’s use in reducing the influence of habits.