Papers

Plain-English summaries of the research we build on.

Each paper gets a short, honest read: what they studied, what they found, what it means, how we operationalize it — and what the paper doesn’t prove.

HABIT2016

Psychology of Habit

Wood, W., & Rünger, D.

About 40% of daily behavior is habitual. Once a habit is formed, intentions and willpower are not the leverage point — cues are.

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HABIT1999

Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans

Gollwitzer, P. M.

“When [cue], I will [action].” The simplest planning format reliably increases follow-through on intentions — by a lot, for how little it costs.

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HABIT2010

How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J.

Habits take a median of 66 days to form — and the precise number is much less interesting than the variance behind it.

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HABIT1999

Habit, attitude, and planned behaviour: Is habit an empty construct or an interesting case of goal-directed automaticity?

Verplanken, B., & Aarts, H.

Habits are real, measurable, and act independently of attitudes. Wanting to do less of something doesn’t make the behavior less.

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HABIT2009

Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks

Leroy, S.

When you switch tasks, part of your attention stays on the old one. The cost compounds across a day of switching.

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HABIT2009

A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design

Fogg, B. J.

Behavior happens when motivation, ability, and a prompt converge in the same moment. Take any one away and it doesn’t.

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MI2010

A Meta-Analysis of Motivational Interviewing: Twenty-Five Years of Empirical Studies

Lundahl, B. W., Kunz, C., Brownell, C., Tollefson, D., & Burke, B. L.

Motivational interviewing produces durable behavior change across many domains — but the size of the effect depends on what you compare it to.

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We’re publishing roughly one new summary a week. The next batch: Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (Bowen et al.), attention residue (Leroy), and stimulus control in habit change.