ArticleJournal of personality2025
Some habits are more work than others: Deliberate self-regulation strategy use increases with behavioral complexity, even for established habits.
Article in Journal of personality, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Not all cues are equal: A systematic review and three-level meta-analysis of context consistency, physical activity and habit strength.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026Pooled it
- Rooted in routine: Fostering higher order vegetable-shopping habits using a randomised simple planning intervention.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Trial
- Striatal dopamine signals internal states related to behavioral performance over prolonged timescales in monkeys.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Adaptive habits: understanding executive function and its development.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- Habit degradation strategies promote faster early reductions in unhealthy snacking habit strength in intensive longitudinal randomised controlled trial.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Some habits are more work than others: Deliberate self-regulation strategy use increases with behavioral complexity, even for established habits.Journal of personality · 2025Article
- Food cravings are associated with increased self-regulation, even in the face of strong instigation habits: A longitudinal study of the transition to plant-based eating.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Article
- Evidence inhibitory self-control moderates effects of habit on complex but not simple health behaviors.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Article
- Motivational dynamics of self-control.Current opinion in psychology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveWe tested the hypothesis that complex behaviors are commonly supported by self-regulation strategies, even when those behaviors are supported by strong instigation habits.
backgroundGoal-directed and habit-mediated processes arise from separable systems that have been suggested to seldomly interact.
resultsSelf-regulation strategy use was lower for habitually instigated simple behaviors compared to nonhabitually instigated simple behaviors. However, participants' use of self-regulation strategies increased with the increasing complexity of behaviors, even when complex behaviors were habitually instigated. The difference in the extent of strategy use between habitually and nonhabitually instigated actions was absent when behavioral complexity was particularly high.
conclusionThese results point to a qualitative distinction-while simple behaviors may progress in a relatively automatic and unthinking manner, complex behaviors receive frequent support from self-regulation strategies, even if they are instigated habitually.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.