Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits

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Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits 1. Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits Chris Stahl University of Phoenix Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits 2. Habits form in all of us in every aspect of our lives in everything we do. The cognitive portion in the way we view our habits as good or bad will influence us to either change our habits or hold onto them for a lifetime. Habits are not concrete and are dropped and adopted overtime, a continuous learning process. A habit is something that we no longer think about because it is such a regularity almost becoming involuntary behavior. A person may not even realize that they are doing something the same over and over because it is second nature. Sometimes habits can carry over into other things we may not intent, like a person that wakes up early Monday through Friday for work. On Saturday and Sunday the habit will carry over forcing them to wake up and start their day. It may be difficult to remember where and why a certain habit has been adopted unless you really focused on finding its origin. The common belief is that we simply adopt our parent’s habits (development, 2010). Sometimes when confronted with one of our strange habits we may deny them right away because we are not conscious to the fact that we are actually doing them. One of my big habits is being a neat freak; I have maintained this habit since I was a young child. I cannot leave the house or go to sleep knowing that the house or car is left a mess. This has carried on into my adult life and is reinforced by my wife, which also possesses this good and bad habit. My father expected everything to be clean and neat at all times and it was instilled in me even today. This is not a habit that I would try very hard to break, at times it can be

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