Illusory Feelings, Elusive Habits: People Overlook Habits in Explanations of Behavior
研究发现，尽管习惯是行为的强大驱动力，但人们在解释自己和他人的行为时，更倾向于归因于情绪等内在状态，而非习惯，这种误解可能影响自我调节。
Habits underlie much of human behavior. However, people may prefer agentic accounts that overlook habits in favor of inner states, such as mood. We tested this misattribution hypothesis in an online experiment of helping behavior ( N = 809 adults) as well as in an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study of U.S. college students’ everyday coffee drinking ( N = 112). Both studies revealed a substantial gap between perceived and actual drivers of behavior: Habit strength outperformed or matched inner states in predicting behavior, but participants’ explanations of their behavior emphasized inner states. Participants continued to misattribute habits to inner states when incentivized for accuracy and when explaining other people’s behavior. We discuss how this misperception could adversely influence self-regulation.