What Is Habitual Responding?

1036 Words3 Pages

Habitual Responding Habitual responding refers to automatic tendencies exhibited by individuals following prolonged practice. These automatic responses are believed to partially underlie relapses mainly among those struggling with drug addiction (Schiltz, 2006). One key example of habitual responding manifests itself in the manner in which individuals exhibit their driving skills. Those drivers who were trained with manual transmission in driving schools find it considerably challenging to adapt to different scenarios. Intriguingly, these drivers often find themselves stepping on an imaginary clutch even when driving a car with automatic transmission. It is pertinent to appreciate the fact that the habit of stepping on the clutch is an adaptive …show more content…

Firstly, the instrumental behavior must reflect an awareness of the relationship between a sequence of actions and the repercussions. Secondly, the outcome has to be considerably desirable at the moment of choice. Goal directed actions arise from the fact that subjects tend to prefer actions because they believe the actions lead to outcomes that are currently appealing. This differs from habitual responding mainly because habitual responding in that case is supposed to have been facilitated by past reinforcement. Whereas habitual responding is independent of the current appeal and associated outcome, Goal directed actions significantly depend on the outcomes’ appeal (Ray J. Dolan, 2013). Goals are primarily considered to be the key influencers of individuals’ actions (Peter M. Gollwitzer, 1996). Based on certain special needs, therefore, goals often lead to various self regulatory and different outcomes as well. It is worth noting that positive and negative incentives are framed differently depending on one’s outcome focus. This means that positive outcome focus leads to the conception of positive incentives in terms of the assurance of favorable outcomes. The positive outcome focus also leads to conceiving of negative incentives in terms of the lack of a positive outcome. On the other hand, a negative outcome focus defines a negative incentive in terms of the availability of …show more content…

Incentive theory states that people’s behaviors are enormously influenced by the desire to gain rewards. Incentive value, therefore, play a pivotal role in determining people’s courses of actions on numerous occasions (Sara Kim, 2011). Examples of incentives include good academic grades, which motivates an individual to pay attention to their studies. The desire to gain recognition from teachers and classmates can also be another incentive to studying hard. Money is also an excellent external reward that influences people’s behaviors. In majority of cases, the external rewards can motivate people to perform tasks that they might otherwise have avoided because of their difficulty or unpleasantness. It is prudent to appreciate the fact that the value of incentives vary from one situation to another. For instance, external rewards that are motivational to one individual may be completely unappealing to another. Various factors including physiological, cognitive and social are vital when it comes to the realization of incentive value. Key examples of incentive value can be demonstrated by the fact that a hungry person is more likely to be motivated by food than a person who is already full. Furthermore, a teenage boy may be motivated to perform certain chores by the promise of a football, while a grown up may find that incentive quite unappealing. It is

Open Document