Acting to self-regulate unhealthy eating habits. An investigation into the effects of habit,hedonic hunger and self-regulation on sugar consumption from confectionery foods

Many people are motivated to eat healthily but find it difficult to override established and less healthy habits. Habits by their nature are unconscious and cued by the environment, thus making them powerful determinants of behaviour. Limited research has explored the role of habit as a mediator between self-regulation and sugar consumption. This study investigated the relative importance of factors that support/impede the consumption of foods with high sugar content and the mediating effect of habit. The study sample was 500 Irish adult’s representative of the population. Sugar consumption, habit, hedonic hunger, self-efficacy, perceived need, dietary planning and dietary self-monitoring were assessed using self-reported measures. A path analysis of the data was used to test the direct and indirect effects of the independent factors on estimated sugar consumption grams per day (g/d). In addition, the interaction effects of self-efficacy and dietary planning/self-monitoring on sugar consumption was examined using simple slope analysis. The results showed that habit had the largest effect in the model and was positively related to sugar consumption g/d (b = 12.09, p < 0.01). While the direct effect of self-efficacy on sugar-consumption g/d was significant (b = −5.25, p < 0.05), this effect was partially mediated by habit (−4.84, Bca CI −7.00, −3.00) and the direct effect of action control on sugar consumption (b = −1.30, p = 0.311) was fully mediated by habit (b = −2.42, Bca CI −3.93, −1.20), which indicates that strong unhealthy habits compete against self-efficacy and can reduce the potential benefits of dietary planning and self-monitoring. The simple slope analysis revealed that action control has a significant negative effect on sugar intake when self-efficacy is weak (b = −5.48, p = 0.01). The direct effect of hedonic hunger on confectionery sugar consumption (b = 1.38, p = 0.376) was fully mediated by habit (b = 5.92, Bca CI 4.20, 8.08) indicating that the desire to eat tempting food may overrides one’s intended behaviour resulting in counter-intentional habits. It is apparent from the findings that a dual strategy of targeting behaviour and the underlying habits may be effective in improving dietary intake and self-regulation is likely to be sustainable only in an environment that facilitates healthy eating behaviour.     

Instream flow studies in perspective

The Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) has been subject to criticisms, including its apparent imprecision, inability to predict discharge-biomass relationships, lack of independence of hydraulic variables, and omission of predation/competition as variables in assessing the dynamics of aquatic populations and communities. This paper addresses criticisms of the methodology, stressing three themes. First, the development of IFIM to its present form is described. The goal of the method is to relate biotic values in equivalent terms to those used to estimate other beneficial uses of water. As such the engineering concepts of hydraulic simulation and suitability criteria play a strong role in the model. Previous studies suggest that IFIM appears to perform defensibly in coldwater systems but less well in more complex coolwater and warmwater systems. Second, the strengths of IFIM are considered and the type of environmental of IFIM are considered and the type of environmental problems it is suited to address are described. Research suggests that biotic responses vary dramatically as certain threshold discharges are approached and it is suggested that biomass predictions are inappropriate with current versions of IFIM. Its greatest utility is shown to be in assessing the impacts of water resources development on habitat availability for aquatic organisms. Third, the limitations of IFIM are presented; those that appear to have merit and those that arise from misapplication or misunderstanding of the methodology. We suggest that suitability criteria be developed on a site specific basis and include depth-velocity dependent functions. The added predictive power by incorporation of coefficients of biological interactions to this management model is probably not justified by the expense required to obtain the data. As a tool, IFIM maximizes generality and precision at the expense of ecological reality but this does not detract from its utility to analyse water resource issues.     

Understanding use continuance in virtual worlds: Empirical test of a research model

We decided to examine why people continue to use virtual worlds by studying a real example: the popular virtual world of Second Life. This involved building and testing a model of virtual worlds based on habit from both the habit/automaticity and instant automaticity perspectives, the latter based on utilitarian and hedonic goals. The results (for a sample of 339 users) suggested that continuance intention for the virtual world was driven by perceived usefulness, enjoyment, and both perspectives of automatic behavior, which together provide considerable explanatory power for both habit and continuance intention. We conclude with implications for practice in this new area of inquiry.     

Formation and Effect of Social Media Usage Habit

The widespread of social media (SM) provides information system (IS) research with a great opportunity to examine IS usage habit. This study adapts habit perspectives of social psychology into social media use and contextualizes findings from both service marketing and IS usage literature for developing a model of SM usage habit. The model suggests a set of behavior-, goal-, affect-, and expectation-based factors that drive the formation of habit for SM use, which in turn influences future usage behavior. By testing the model with a longitudinal field survey of 518 social networking service (SNS) users, this study provides an integrative context-specific view of SM usage habit and addresses unconscious habitual IS use beyond the traditional perspectives of conscious intentional behavior. The findings have important implications for promoting sustainability of social media applications and services.     

Habitual Facebook Use and its Impact on Getting Deceived on Social Media

There are a billion Facebook users worldwide with some individuals spending 8 hours each day on the platform. Limited research has, however, explored the consequences of such overuse. Even less research has examined the misuse of social media by criminals who are increasingly using social media to defraud individuals through phishing‐type attacks. The current study focuses on Facebook habits and its determinants and the extent to which they ultimately influence individual susceptibility to social media phishing attacks. The results suggest that habitual Facebook use, founded on the individual frequently using Facebook, maintaining a large social network, and being deficient in their ability to regulate such behaviors, is the single biggest predictor of individual victimization in social media attacks.     

Examining the Distinct Antecedents of E‐Mail Habits and its Influence on the Outcomes of a Phishing Attack

While research has linked social media phishing susceptibility to individual Facebook habits, the underlying process by which habits lead to victimization and the extent to which it explains e‐mail‐based phishing remains unclear. The study compared the antecedents and consequences of e‐mail habits and cognitive processing on the outcome of a simulated phishing attack. E‐mail habits were rooted in stable personality dimensions of conscientiousness and emotional stability, while cognitive processing was premised on contextual information adequacy considerations. Interestingly, habits and processing jointly influenced the outcome of the attack: Systematic processing attenuated phishing susceptibility by a small factor; the cumulative effects of heuristic processing and e‐mail habits, however, caused a fourfold increase in likely victimization, overwhelming any advantage from detailed processing.     

Impact of gaming habits on motivation to attain gaming goals,perceived price fairness,and online gamer loyalty: Perspective of consistency principle

Online games are popular electronic commerce applications that have a business model of selling gaming items to gamers. Such a business model helps gamers attain gaming goals while cultivating their gaming habits. Gaming habits can lead gamers to play games automatically, indicating their impact on gamers. However, little is known about how gaming habits affect gamers’ perceptions of the prices of the gaming items, goal-attaining motivation, and online gamer loyalty. Grounded in the consistency principle, we construct a framework to explain how gaming habits impact motivation to attain gaming goals, perceived price fairness, and online gamer loyalty. We collected 5,144 responses from online gamers and used structural equation modelling to test the research model. We found that gaming habits are positively related to motivation to attain gaming goals and perceived price fairness, which are further positively related to online gamer loyalty. Ours is the first study using the perspective of the consistency principle to examine the mechanism underlying the impact of gaming habits on online gamer loyalty. Our findings provide novel insights for electronic commerce managers that they could focus on enhancing perceived price fairness and motivation to attain gaming goals, thus establishing a loyal user base. Such findings could also apply to interactive hedonic systems, indicating their potential academic impact.     

Exploring the determinants of users’ continuance intention in smartwatches

The purpose of this study is to examine possible factors that influence continuance intention to use a smartwatch. The proposed research model is based on the expectation confirmation model adapted to include individual mobility, perceived aesthetics, and habit. The sample consisted of 348 actual users of smartwatches and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the research model. The results indicate that perceived aesthetics, satisfaction, individual mobility, and habit are associated with individuals’ continuance intention to use smartwatches. Surprisingly, perceived usefulness does not directly influence continuance intention of smartwatches. The implications for both theory and practice are provided based on the findings.     

Texting while driving on automatic: Considering the frequency-independent side of habit

This study tested the potential of the frequency-independent components of habit, or automaticity, to predict the rate of texting while driving. A survey of 441 college students at a large American university was conducted utilizing a frequency-independent version of the experimentally validated Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI;  and ). Controlling for gender, age, and driver confidence, analyses showed that automatic texting tendencies predicted both sending and reading texts while driving. The findings suggest that texting while driving behavior may be partially attributable to individuals doing so without awareness, control, attention, and intention regarding their own actions. The unique contribution of automaticity explained more variance than overall individual usage, and remained significant even after accounting for norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control. The results demonstrate the importance of distinguishing the level of automaticity from behavioral frequency in mobile communication research. Future applications and implications for research are discussed.     

Effect of Habit Modifiers on Morphology and Properties of Nano‐HNS Explosive in Prefilming Twin‐Fluid Nozzle‐Assisted Precipitation

This article was published in Early View with DOI 10.1002/prep.200800071 – what is wrong. It has appeared with the correct DOI 10.1002/prep.200900071 – in Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics 2009 (34) issue 1/2009 on pp 72‐77.