Towards parsimony in habit measurement: Testing the convergent and predictive validity of an automaticity subscale of the Self-Report Habit Index

By Benjamin Gardner, C. Abraham, Phillippa Lally, Gert-Jan de Bruijn. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2012

775 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundThe twelve-item Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI) is the most popular measure of energy-balance related habits. This measure characterises habit by automatic activation, behavioural frequency, and relevance to self-identity. Previous empirical research suggests that the SRHI may be abbreviated with no losses in reliability or predictive utility. Drawing on recent theorising suggesting that automaticity is the ‘active ingredient’ of habit-behaviour relationships, we tested whether an automaticity-specific SRHI subscale could capture habit-based behaviour patterns in self-report data.MethodsA content validity task was undertaken to identify a subset of automaticity indicators within the SRHI. The reliability, convergent validity and predictive validity of the automaticity item subset was subsequently tested in secondary analyses of all previous SRHI applications, identified via systematic review, and in primary analyses of four raw datasets relating to energy‐balance relevant behaviours (inactive travel, active travel, snacking, and alcohol consumption).ResultsA four-item automaticity subscale (the ‘Self-Report Behavioural Automaticity Index’; ‘SRBAI’) was found to be reliable and sensitive to two hypothesised effects of habit on behaviour: a habit-behaviour correlation, and a moderating effect of habit on the intention-behaviour relationship.ConclusionThe SRBAI offers a parsimonious measure that adequately captures habitual behaviour patterns. The SRBAI may be of particular utility in predicting future behaviour and in studies tracking habit formation or disruption.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1f43c9eb9fd43751115bd1edf51bd945a113fc27

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Citations in the corpus

A push to cycling—exploring the e-bike's role in overcoming barriers to bicycle use with a survey and an intervention study (2017, background): “…original scale consists of 12 items, but acceptable validity can be achieved by the use of fewer items measuring the automaticity aspect of habits (Gardner et al. 2012) “[Using the bike/car] when I am going to work/school is something that I do without thinking about,” and “Using the bike when I…”
Procrastination out of Habit? The Role of Impulsive Versus Reflective Media Selection in Procrastinatory Media Use (2018, neutral): “…automatically,” “I did not think about switching on [media device],” “I switched on [media device] without paying attention;” five-point agreement scale; television: α = .75; M = 1.97, SD = 1.13; computer: α = .79;M = 1.76, SD = 1.00; smartphone: α = .83; M = 2.06, SD = 1.12; Gardner et al., 2012).”
A review and analysis of the use of ‘habit’ in understanding, predicting and influencing health-related behaviour (2014, methodology): “Although intended to capture the experience of repetitive action rather than to estimate frequency (Verplanken & Orbell, 2003), behavioural frequency SRHI items are likely to invite responses that covary closely with enactment frequency (e.g., Gardner et al., 2011).”
Psychology of Habit. (2016, methodology): “…approach, the Self-Report Habit Index estimates habit strength from a questionnaire measure of the experience of automaticity and frequency of past performance (Verplanken & Orbell 2003), which has further been streamlined to measure only automaticity (Gardner 2014, Gardner et al. 2012).”
Habit slips: when consumers unintentionally resist new products (2017, methodology): “Specifically, participants reported that the old products that their new product was replacing (n = 131 products) were used more often than several times a week (M = 4.15), and that using the previous product was moderately automatic (MSRBAI = 3.58).”
Habits and the electronic herd: The psychology behind social media’s successes and failures (2020, background): “Specifically, past posting frequency was positively associated with higher scores on the Self-Report Behavioural Automaticity Index (Gardner et al., 2012), a widely accepted indicator of habit strength.”
The links between self-determined motivations and behavioral automaticity in a variety of real-life behaviors (2017, methodology): “This scale was found to be a reliable instrument to measure behavioral automaticity (Gardner et al. 2012).”
Habit as automaticity, not frequency (2012, methodology): “A subsequent metaanalysis of published SRHI applications, reanalysed using the SRBAI, generally replicated these findings (Gardner et al, 2012).”