Routines and Habits

Behaviors that are repeated regularly in a consistent context tend to become habitual and occur with little or no awareness. This applies to many forms of consumer behavior and operates as a way of rendering manageable the vast array of consumer choices (or selections) that consumers face as they go about their daily lives. Were consumers to consider every act of consumption or rationally consider every product selection while shopping, then consumption would be both highly time consuming and near impossible.

Repetition in daily life may be the rule rather than the exception. A community sample of members that kept diaries reported that close to 50 percent of their activities were performed almost daily and usually in the same location (Quinn and Wood 2005). This regularity implies that much behavior is of a habitual kind. As early as 1890, William James emphasized the importance of habits. Habits diminish the conscious attention with which our acts are performed, leaving room for the development of new behaviors to take place. This routine manner of performing an act also renders it difficult to explain how it is performed. No one may be able to describe in which order he or she dresses, although it is likely that the order is pretty fixed. James also noticed that habits are difficult to get rid of. Hence, it is important that in particular young people develop good habits. Just as we may become saints in the moral, so we may also become drunkards.

In line with the view of habits that James represented, a modern definition of habits specifies that “habits are learned sequences of acts that have become automatic responses to specific cues, and are functional in obtaining certain goals or end-states.” (Verplanken and Aarts 1999, 104). Besides a stable context and repetition, the functionality or rewarding consequences of performing a behavior also support the development of habits. This is a characterization that fits well the consumption of many everyday products. Since habits occur without much awareness, little attention is given to the variety of information that encompasses such products. For example, Ulf Dahlstrand and Anders Biel found that consumers who more regularly buy eco-labeled products become less sensitive to the price difference as compared with nonlabeled alternatives. Consumers also spend little time in choosing between everyday [Page 1238]products and provide only a single reason for their choice, according to Wayne Hoyer. Examples of specific cues or rules of thumb that may guide the consumer are price (buy the cheapest), the usual alternative, a particular brand, or an eco-label.

Marketing and advertising may influence the process of habit formation through perceptual categorization. Consumers that have not yet established a preference could learn to associate, for example, a particular pasta, or pasta brand, with exceptional qualities with regard to qualities such as taste, function, price, exclusiveness, or effect. To the extent that they experience the pasta as rewarding, they are likely to continue to buy it. With repeated choice, they will develop a direct link between the goal to buy pasta, the goal-directed cue, the particular package, and the behavior to choose pasta.

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