Habits, actions, and behavior change:
Research at the intersection of behavior, brain, and health science
Mark E. Bouton
University Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychological Science
University of Vermont
My students and I have studied the basic learning processes that underlie behavior change for many years. We have established that behavior change can be remarkably context-dependent. For example, when a behavior is eliminated by any of several methods (e.g., extinction, punishment, or incentivized abstinence), it can return or relapse when the context is changed. Recent work has extended the analysis to goal-directed actions and habits. Goal-directed actions become habits with lots of repetition and practice, as theories of addiction often suppose. However, contrary to the idea that habits are fixed and rigid, the transition from action to habit is like other types of behavior change: Habit learning does not erase goal direction, but interferes with it in a context-dependent way. As I tell the story, I will illustrate how our progress has helped, and been helped by, neuroscience research on the role of medial prefrontal cortex in behavior and clinical questions about addiction, relapse, and therapy.