ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
What can machine learning teach us about habit formation? Evidence from exercise and hygiene.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- A randomized trial of behavioral interventions yielding sustained reductions in distracted driving.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Trial
- A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Habit degradation strategies promote faster early reductions in unhealthy snacking habit strength in intensive longitudinal randomised controlled trial.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Extending the stimulus organism response model with exercise habits to explain consumer purchase intentions for alternative foods.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Signatures of reinforcement learning in natural behavior.Current directions in psychological science · 2025Article
- Digital questionnaire response time (DQRT): A ubiquitous and low-cost digital assay of cognitive processing speed.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Some habits are more work than others: Deliberate self-regulation strategy use increases with behavioral complexity, even for established habits.Journal of personality · 2025Article
- The temporal trajectories of habit decay in daily life: An intensive longitudinal study on four health-risk behaviors.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Article
- Naturally disengaging control to reveal habits.Research square · 2025Article
- Reliable, rapid, and remote measurement of metacognitive bias.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The temporal structure of goal-directed and habitual operant behavior.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2024Article
- Reduction of Financial Health Incentives and Changes in Physical Activity.JAMA network open · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We apply a machine learning technique to characterize habit formation in two large panel data sets with objective measures of 1) gym attendance (over 12 million observations) and 2) hospital handwashing (over 40 million observations). Our Predicting Context Sensitivity (PCS) approach identifies context variables that best predict behavior for each individual. This approach also creates a time series of overall predictability for each individual. These time series predictability values are used to trace a habit formation curve for each individual, operationalizing the time of habit formation as the asymptotic limit of when behavior becomes highly predictable. Contrary to the popular belief in a "magic number" of days to develop a habit, we find that it typically takes months to form the habit of going to the gym but weeks to develop the habit of handwashing in the hospital. Furthermore, we find that gymgoers who are more predictable are less responsive to an intervention designed to promote more gym attendance, consistent with past experiments showing that habit formation generates insensitivity to reward devaluation.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.