Trial reportApplied psychology. Health and well-being2025
HabitWalk: A micro-randomized trial to understand and promote habit formation in physical activity.
Trial report in Applied psychology. Health and well-being, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- HabitWalk: A micro-randomized trial to understand and promote habit formation in physical activity.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Trial
- Changes in identity and habit formation during 3 months of sport and physical activity participation among parents with young children.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Trial
- The Usage Effects, Effect Modifiers, and Experiences of a Web-Based App for Healthy Habit Formation in Adults: Exploratory Analysis of a Quasi-Experimental Real-World Intervention.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Article
- A Longitudinal Study Examining Physical Activity Habit Formation.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Habit degradation strategies promote faster early reductions in unhealthy snacking habit strength in intensive longitudinal randomised controlled trial.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Do clock-in for physical exercise in campus help in building undergraduate exercise habits? Evidence from undergraduates in Henan, China.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- 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
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Habit is a key psychological determinant for physical activity behavior change and maintenance. This study aims to deepen the understanding of habit formation in physical activity and identify promotion strategies. We examined the habit formation trajectory and its relationships with cue-behavior repetition (a cue-triggered 15-minute brisk walk) and unconditional physical activity (daily steps). We also tested whether the behavior change techniques (BCTs) 'commitment' and 'prompts and cues' promote habit, cue-behavior repetition, and daily steps within persons. This micro-randomized trial included a 7-day preparatory and a 105-day experimental phase delivered via the HabitWalk app. Participants (N = 24) had a 50% probability of receiving each BCT daily, leading to four conditions. Habit strength was assessed daily using the Self-Report Behavioral Automaticity Index, while cue-behavior repetition and steps were measured via an activity tracker. Person-specific growth functions indicated that habit strength trajectories were highly idiosyncratic. Multilevel models indicated a positive effect of cue-behavior repetition on habit strength, but not vice versa. The effect of habit strength on daily steps varied by the operationalization of cue-behavior repetition. Tentative findings suggest that commitment and prompts and cues are effective habit-promotion strategies when delivered together.
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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.