This research aims to test a novel intervention to help people form healthy habits, such as exercise more. In particular, we will examine how encouraging people to have “placeholders” on their break days, or days off from pursuing their goals, affects their likelihood of reaching their goals. People will be encouraged to complete a goal-consistent behavior every other day at a specified time (e.g., exercise M-W-F at 3 pm); however, on the days, they do not need to complete the goal-consistent behavior (e.g., T-Th), we will manipulate whether they are encouraged (or not) to engage in another activity during that same time (e.g., reading), what we term a placeholder. By having a placeholder, consumers may be more likely to exercise on M-W-F as the cue to engage in a target activity is activated more frequently than those without a placeholder. By more frequently activating the cue, consumers may be more likely to remember to exercise at a particular time, without getting fatigued from exercising too many days, and thus be more likely to form an automatic habit of exercising.
Psychological research suggests that interventions that encourage routines, or stable habits, could improve individual welfare tremendously, in particular, if capable of improving behaviors and decisions about health, education, and personal finance. Established habits help reduce cognitive load such that goal-pursuit behaviors are automatic, and individuals may not need to decide every time how much to work out, what to eat, how to spend money, and how hard to study (Neal, Wood, and Drolet 2013). Three central habit-forming interventions have been found to be effective: frequent repetition, recurring contexts and associated context cues, and intermittent rewards (Wood and Neal 2016). This research might suggest then that we should encourage people to complete the same task every day at the same time in order to most likely to start a habit, such as exercising. For example, people could exercise at 5 pm for 30 minutes every day. However, while in theory this sounds appealing, we also know that this may not be realistic. Many times consumers can not physically complete some of these goal-consistent activities every day due to fatigue. Furthermore, forming stable habits can be daunting at the beginning or with limited willpower, as individuals need to consistently engage in deliberation and implementation (Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006). Thus, people may not be able to exert enough self-control to complete these goal-consistent activities every day. Indeed, there is research to suggest that consumers actually persist more when they are encouraged to complete an activity anytime within a day rather than within a 2-hour window (Beshears et al. 2021). This research aims to help solve this problem by introducing a novel intervention to help people form healthy habits. In particular, we will examine how encouraging people to have “placeholders” on their break days, or days off from pursuing their goals, affects their likelihood of reaching their goals. People will be encouraged to complete a goalconsistent behavior every other day at a specified time (e.g., exercise M-W-F at 3 pm); however, on the days, they do not need to complete the goal-consistent behavior (e.g., T-Th), we will manipulate whether they are encouraged (or not) to engage in another activity during that same time (e.g., reading), what we term a placeholder. By having a placeholder, consumers may be more likely to exercise on M-W-F as the cue to engage in a target activity is activated more frequently than those without a placeholder. By more frequently activating the cue, consumers may be more likely to remember to exercise at a particular time, without getting fatigued from exercising too many days, and thus be more likely to form an automatic habit of exercising.