Hey fellows,
As promised in my intro - you might want to check it - here is some data of my yet unpublished psychological long term study on habit building.
15 months ago, I had...basically nothing but an idea for a study for my doctoral thesis: I wanted to help people build study habits to reduce motivational interference while studying. Motivational interference is a phenomenon that occurs when you basically want to do something else than the current action - we all know that. You study for a test, but want to watch netflix. That destabilizes your learning process (you get into a bad mood, have less persistence, think about other stuff, switch tasks etc.).
I learned app development with udemy and some learning apps and was able to create a simple app that helped students define and track a simple (5-20 minutes) study habit and would give them feedback on how strong their habit has become psychologically (it might read like it was not so difficult, but it was a tough grind). Took me 3 months from zero to app.
Then I contacted several professors and asked them if I could advertise my study in their lectures. After another 4 months, I got around 100 students that took part in my study, which was basically: Use my app for 6 weeks and lets see what happens. The participants could choose their own, individual study habit. Some examples are: lecture summarizing, reading literature, language learning etc.
I collected data on how the habit developed and got more automatic over time. When I first analyzed the data, my feedback loop triggered like crazy. Check this (excerpt of my results mail that I sent to the participants of the study):
The key result: Habits work an make everything better
.
Check out the graph I attached for you. It summarizes the most important trends. Means over all participants over time are plotted.
On the x-axis, you can see the number of habit repetitions and on the y-axis, you can see the different outcome variables. For example, at habit repetition = 40 you can see, that the average score for motivational interference was approx 1,9 (vs. 3,6 after the first habit repetiton).
The variables explained:
Scale 0 (= not true at all) to 10 (= absolutely true)
Automaticity: Habit strength. Describes how automatic a habit action feels. This measure basically shows the habit building process. You can see a continuous, linear growth, which means that the performance of the habit action actually got increasingly easier and more automatic for the participants.
Motivational_Interference: Motivational destabilization during the habit action. If you are in a bad mood, do not persist long and are easily distracted, this value is high. The stronger the habit, the more resilient the habit becomes against motivational destabilization.
Awareness: Awareness during the habit. This measure consists of the two facets acceptance and present-orientedness. A high value here means that one is in the present and feels balanced while performing the habit. Participants became more and more aware while performing their habits with increasing habit repetition.
VA_intrinsic: "I like doing my habit.". With each habit repetition, participants actually liked their habit more and more - a positive spiral.
MC_should: Should conflict. The feeling one should do something else (e.g. going to the gym, do chores) while performing the habit. Should conflicts stayed constantly on a low level during habit performance.
MC_want: Want conflict. The feeling of wanting to do something else than performing the habit (#netflix). The more often you did your habit, the less you feel the craving for other actions that are more pleasant to do - this is huge.
But, check out the graph for yourself.
The whole thing took 15 months to complete (idea, planning of the study, app development, testing, getting the participants, data analysis, presentation at the psychological faculty). Now, I'm at the point where I want to monetize this app with a freemium/subscription model. I will describe the value skew and traffic strategy in detail in another post.
If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask - I love talking about this.
Keep up the good work.
Marco
As promised in my intro - you might want to check it - here is some data of my yet unpublished psychological long term study on habit building.
15 months ago, I had...basically nothing but an idea for a study for my doctoral thesis: I wanted to help people build study habits to reduce motivational interference while studying. Motivational interference is a phenomenon that occurs when you basically want to do something else than the current action - we all know that. You study for a test, but want to watch netflix. That destabilizes your learning process (you get into a bad mood, have less persistence, think about other stuff, switch tasks etc.).
I learned app development with udemy and some learning apps and was able to create a simple app that helped students define and track a simple (5-20 minutes) study habit and would give them feedback on how strong their habit has become psychologically (it might read like it was not so difficult, but it was a tough grind). Took me 3 months from zero to app.
Then I contacted several professors and asked them if I could advertise my study in their lectures. After another 4 months, I got around 100 students that took part in my study, which was basically: Use my app for 6 weeks and lets see what happens. The participants could choose their own, individual study habit. Some examples are: lecture summarizing, reading literature, language learning etc.
I collected data on how the habit developed and got more automatic over time. When I first analyzed the data, my feedback loop triggered like crazy. Check this (excerpt of my results mail that I sent to the participants of the study):
The key result: Habits work an make everything better
.Check out the graph I attached for you. It summarizes the most important trends. Means over all participants over time are plotted.
On the x-axis, you can see the number of habit repetitions and on the y-axis, you can see the different outcome variables. For example, at habit repetition = 40 you can see, that the average score for motivational interference was approx 1,9 (vs. 3,6 after the first habit repetiton).
The variables explained:
Scale 0 (= not true at all) to 10 (= absolutely true)
Automaticity: Habit strength. Describes how automatic a habit action feels. This measure basically shows the habit building process. You can see a continuous, linear growth, which means that the performance of the habit action actually got increasingly easier and more automatic for the participants.
Motivational_Interference: Motivational destabilization during the habit action. If you are in a bad mood, do not persist long and are easily distracted, this value is high. The stronger the habit, the more resilient the habit becomes against motivational destabilization.
Awareness: Awareness during the habit. This measure consists of the two facets acceptance and present-orientedness. A high value here means that one is in the present and feels balanced while performing the habit. Participants became more and more aware while performing their habits with increasing habit repetition.
VA_intrinsic: "I like doing my habit.". With each habit repetition, participants actually liked their habit more and more - a positive spiral.
MC_should: Should conflict. The feeling one should do something else (e.g. going to the gym, do chores) while performing the habit. Should conflicts stayed constantly on a low level during habit performance.
MC_want: Want conflict. The feeling of wanting to do something else than performing the habit (#netflix). The more often you did your habit, the less you feel the craving for other actions that are more pleasant to do - this is huge.
But, check out the graph for yourself.
The whole thing took 15 months to complete (idea, planning of the study, app development, testing, getting the participants, data analysis, presentation at the psychological faculty). Now, I'm at the point where I want to monetize this app with a freemium/subscription model. I will describe the value skew and traffic strategy in detail in another post.
If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask - I love talking about this.
Keep up the good work.
Marco
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