Verhoeven Aukje A C, Kindt Merel, Zomer Colene L, de Wit Sanne
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15933, 1001 NK Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15933, 1001 NK Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2018 Mar;184:124-136. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.05.008. Epub 2017 May 26.
The interplay between inflexible habits and flexible goal-directed control can be modelled in lab-settings using the slips-of-action task. In this task, participants are required to selectively respond to still-valuable outcomes while suppressing responding towards no-longer valuable outcomes, thereby overriding learned stimulus-response associations. Here we examined in the slips-of-action task whether learnt habits can be changed using a planning technique - so-called implementation intentions - whereby people instruct themselves to enact a certain behaviour (or not) in the presence of a specific critical stimulus. Such simple 'if-then' instructions have previously been shown to support behavioural change in real-life settings, possibly because people verbally create new stimulus-response associations. Across four experiments we manipulated the intrinsic value of the stimuli and outcomes in the slips-of-action task: abstract stimuli and outcomes (Experiment 1), snack food stimuli and outcomes (Experiment 2), or a combination of both types (Experiment 3-4). Implementation intentions improved the ability to suppress previously learnt responses towards no-longer-valuable abstract outcomes (Experiment 1 and 3). However, when snacks were used as outcomes (Experiment 2 and 4) no beneficial effect of implementation intentions versus goal intentions was observed. The slips-of-action task is thus sensitive to planning techniques under certain circumstances. Yet, the absence of effects when using snacks as outcomes implies the possible importance of its hedonic outcome value for implementation intentions' effectiveness, which warrants further investigation.
僵化的习惯与灵活的目标导向控制之间的相互作用可以在实验室环境中通过行动失误任务进行模拟。在这个任务中，参与者需要选择性地对仍然有价值的结果做出反应，同时抑制对不再有价值的结果的反应，从而推翻已习得的刺激-反应关联。在这里，我们在行动失误任务中研究了习得的习惯是否可以通过一种规划技术——所谓的执行意图——来改变，即人们指示自己在特定的关键刺激出现时做出（或不做出）某种行为。这种简单的“如果……那么……”指令此前已被证明能在现实生活环境中支持行为改变，可能是因为人们通过言语创造了新的刺激-反应关联。在四项实验中，我们在行动失误任务中操纵了刺激和结果的内在价值：抽象刺激和结果（实验1）、休闲食品刺激和结果（实验2），或两种类型的组合（实验3 - 4）。执行意图提高了抑制先前习得的对不再有价值的抽象结果的反应的能力（实验1和3）。然而，当将零食用作结果时（实验2和4），未观察到执行意图相对于目标意图的有益效果。因此，行动失误任务在某些情况下对规划技术敏感。然而，使用零食作为结果时没有效果，这意味着享乐结果价值对执行意图有效性可能具有重要意义，这值得进一步研究。
