Impulsive Mode Essay

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Many of the common modern diseases such as diabetes, (lung) cancer and cardiovascular disease are caused by habits like physical inactivity, smoking and unhealthy diets [1]. Most habits are automatic human behavioral processes that are triggered by environmental or situational stimuli. These behavioral processes become habits when they are constantly repeated in the same context and result in actions that one is not conscious about [2], which can be both advantageous and disadvantageous to the individual’s health. Up until now, most of the approaches trying to change unhealthy habits in the population have been done through clinics or public health campaigns and are often ineffectual, as the actions are unconscious. When using habits as a …show more content…

The reflective mode is used when we are conscious of what our goal is, how to act to achieve it and the consequences. This mode is goal-directed, flexible and rational; however, it is also slow and tiring, as all attention is focused on it. It is rule-based and deliberate, motivated by the person’s beliefs, desires, values and probabilities. On the other hand we have the impulsive mode, where we act without being really aware of it, responding to our environment in a way we have learned from many experiences. In contrary to the reflective mode, the impulsive mode is fast and unconscious, but inflexible and not associated with the person’s conscious desires, automatizing our actions and allowing our thoughts to be focused of something else. As this mode occurs outside of awareness, the habit may continue even when the consequences are not favorable and wanted. Even though these two modes of information-processing seem to be the opposites of each other, they actually overlap and interact, complementing but also coming into conflict with each other. Habits are a class of impulsive mode behavior and are contrasted with goal-directed behavior, although not all habits are impulsive and impulsive acts can be goal-directed. When looking at interventions for changing unhealthy habits, most of them are targeting reflective processes, trying to persuade …show more content…

In this category priming and goal priming are mechanisms that can be used as intervention tools to influence automatic behavior of humans. Priming refers to passively and subtly presenting environmental stimuli that activate or inhibit associated mental representation to influence the behavior of people without them being aware of it. An example is using positive stimuli to approach people, like using fun terms to describe vegetables to children to make it more attractive for them to eat, as they will associate it with fun thoughts [1, 3]. Goal priming is when the environmental stimuli activate specific goals, also influencing the individual without them noticing it, motivating them to pursue it. Research has shown that goal-directed behavior can be triggered by exposing participants to environmental and situational stimuli to long-term health goals. These stimuli can be for example posters promoting health placed next to a vending machine, motivating people to buy healthy items. Goal-priming however, only works if the individual knows which goal-directed behavior can be used to pursue and achieve the outcome, and needs to have access to such behavior. It is also important that the individual values the outcome, as studies also have shown that goal-priming was more effective among those individuals [

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