Action triggers: what are they and how do they influence behavior

In today's society, everyone wants to acquire good habits. The slogan of the 21st century is that we have to eat healthy, exercise frequently, be very happy, avoid being lazy, and many more.

It is very easy to think that one day we will carry it out, but it is not so easy when we want to get down to work. We need something to activate us, to direct us to it. We need action triggers.

Next, we will understand exactly what these triggers are, and see what types there are and how we can use them to our advantage.

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What are action triggers?

The triggers for the action are an exact mental representation of a chain of events, which are located in a certain place, at a certain time or moment of the day, and they can occur with or without the company of other people. That is, it is imagining everything that influences the performance of a certain action and, therefore, in case of that it is repeated on more than one occasion contributes to this action becoming established as a habit, be it positive or negative.

Exactly describing the steps to be followed and the context in which the action will take place contributes significantly to its occurrence. In fact, there is research that has tried to see how simply getting participants to imagine taking a future action increases the chances of it happening, and then we will see a case particular.

The Gollwitzer and Brandstätter experiment

Psychologists Peter Gollwitzer and Veronika Brandstätter discovered in 1999 what they called the implantation intention technique., which is synonymous with action triggers.

Using university students, they were able to observe the power of describing a future action contributing to its occurrence. His experiment consisted of taking the students of a subject and proposing them to carry out an activity to raise the grade. This exercise was to deliver a paper about how they would spend Christmas Eve.

So far everything is very normal, but Gollwitzer and Brandstätter asked for something different from those who were part of the control group and those who were part of the experimental group. Those in control were asked to deliver the work on December 26, that is, after, in theory, the action occurred, while those in control The experimental group were asked to define, in the greatest degree of detail, where they would do the work, and to provide this description before leaving. holidays.

So that we understand each other: the control group was asked to deliver the work once they had done the activity, while the experimental groups had to describe, before it was done. Christmas Eve where they would end up doing it (eg, I will get up early on the 25th to write the work in the library of my city ...) and then deliver the work of what they had done that day.

While in the control group, of all those who said that they were going to deliver the final work, only 33% ended up doing it, in the experimental group this percentage was higher, of about 75%, showing that describing an action in advance and accurately contributes to its ending.

Action triggers work because they anticipate the decision. By anticipating the action to be carried out, being very clear about the what, how, where, when and with whom, it contributes to our mentalization and motivation to do so. They help create an instant habit.

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Five types of action triggers

As we have already seen, wanting to acquire a good habit and get down to work implies knowing exactly what action we want to carry out. To help make it happen, it is necessary to know how to describe it as precisely as possible, allowing us to mentalize ourselves adequately and that we have a greater tendency to carry it out, as is the previous case of the Gollwitzer students and Brandstätter.

Below we will take a closer look at the five main types of action triggers, which can contribute, for better or for worse, to the acquisition of all kinds of habits.

1. Time of day

The time of day is, surely, the most important trigger when it comes to carrying out a habit. For example, let's think about the habits we have in place in the morning: we get up, drink our coffee or cup of tea, we eat a croissant, we shower, we get dressed and we go to work or to class. The simple fact of successfully getting out of bed already implies performing all these series of actions unconsciously..

But the morning is not the only time of day that influences the way we behave. It may be that, when we get home from class or work, we associate arrival time with having to turn on the TV and hang around, or have a snack. We are used to the fact that, at a certain time, we have to behave in a certain way. The time of day induces us to do these habits.

The time of day can be a perfect trigger for action for us to perform actions that bring us some kind of benefit. For example, if we are interested in acquiring more vocabulary in English, we can try to associate breakfast time with picking up a dictionary and trying to learn ten new words. At first it will cost us, of course, but as the days go by there will be a moment when having breakfast will make us open the book unconsciously.

2. Place

Imagine that we are in the kitchen and we see a plate of freshly baked cookies on the table. We eat them. The reason? They were there. Did we plan to eat them before entering the kitchen? No, we didn't even know what had been done. Why were we going to the kitchen then? We were going to get a glass of water, the plate was the culprit that we decided to eat the cookies.

With this example we can understand the importance that the simple fact that something is there can induce us to do a certain behavior, in this case eating the plate of cookies. Being in the right place at the right time influences our behavior, making a good or bad decision without even having thought about it for just a few seconds. The environment or place is one of the most powerful triggers for action, even though it is not given due importance.

In every room of our house, be it our room or the desk, there may be stimuli that prevent us from studying, for example. Also, in each place of our home we have associated ways of behaving, such as passing hours playing video games in our room, eating cookies in the kitchen or watching TV in the living room to be. They are "contaminated" with our previous behaviors.

That is why it has been seen that the best way to try to establish a new habit is to do it in a new place. For example, if we want to study and there is no way to concentrate in our house, let's go to the library or a cafeteria where we have never been with our friends. Being new places for us, we do not have the precedent of having carried out actions that hinder our study. They are places that promote a more productive environment.

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3. Predecessor event

Many habits are conditioned by something that has happened before, or by a stimulus that may seem harmless for the whole of our behavior but that influences us in such a way that it can lead to the failure of our purposes.

For example, and a classic, is to pick up the mobile when it vibrates and, immediately afterwards, we look at who has sent us the last message. We not only look at the message, since we take the opportunity to look at Instagram, Twitter and curiosities of the last page we have visited. And that wastes us time, especially if we were doing something important in which we should not allow any distraction to interrupt us. The vibration works in us like Pavlov's famous bell with his dogs.

We can use this conditioning of our behavior in the face of a certain stimulus to our benefit. For example, we want to walk more, and a good way to do this is to go up and down stairs. We can propose that, if the elevator is not on our same floor, we do not call it, and go down the stairs. So we do a little leg.

4. Emotions

You don't have to be a psychologist to know how being in a bad mood makes us make bad decisions, which can eventually turn into bad habits. For example, there are people who, when stressed, tend to go to the fridge to find something ultra-sugary, such as a chocolate bar, a flan or a cupcake. Others choose to smoke like cart drivers or spend hours watching Netflix or videos of presses smashing things on YouTube.

It is clear that being sad, angry, stressed or in a bad mood in general makes us do unproductive things. It is because of that the state of mind, as a trigger for a (bad) action is something quite complicated to use for our own benefit. We usually like to do productive things when we are in a good mood, whereas if we are little downcast or angry the last thing we think about is studying, doing sports or taking a good diet.

This is a difficult thing to control. Although we can make a great effort to smile at life in the face of adversity, we are human beings, not emotional and emotionless organisms. We feel, and every feeling influences our behavior, for better or for worse. It is what it is.

However, not all bad news. We can try to think coldly when we are angry and, instead of paying it with the world, channel the tension by doing sports, especially one that involves lifting weights (p. g. gym machines), punching (p. g. boxing) or, if you prefer, make you tired (p. e.g. spinning).

5. Other people

It is not surprising that our companies influence our conduct and, in the worst cases, the saying is better to be alone than in bad company. It has happened to all of us that we do not usually drink but, when we are with a friend, we cannot avoid asking for a beer. In other cases, when we are watching what we eat, being with other friends does not invite us to order a salad for dinner. We could put many more cases, but the idea is already being understood: others influence our decisions.

But not everything is bad. On the contrary, aiming to do things with friends or family can be a factor that triggers the realization of what, over time, will be a good habit. For example, let's imagine that we have joined the gym with our roommate and, every time he goes, we want to accompany him. Then in the gym, if you are also good at exercising, it can motivate us to try new machines and to improve ourselves. It is a case in which another person influences us positively.

Before finishing and deciding the habit to start

Either choosing one of the triggers of the action previously explained, or being aware of how these influence our behavior, it is very important to specify what is the desired habit, or the specific action, that we want acquire. It is not much use to propose to be very healthy, study or meditate without first specifying what exactly these actions mean. It is also very important to specify the trigger (s) that we consider contribute to the action in question..

For example, let's say we want to eat healthier. Very well. Let us ask ourselves the following question: what is healthy? Of course, here we already have a question to solve. Eating a sad lettuce and starving yourself all day is not the same as eating a delicious and varied salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, a can of tuna, a splash of balsamic oil and walnuts, to later be accompanied by a portion of grilled chicken breast accompanied by a little rice and carrots, topping it off with a rich Macedonia.

In the case of the miserable lettuce we have a very vague and general idea of ​​what it is to eat healthy, in addition to not we have imagined ourselves doing the action or even thinking about all the steps necessary to begin to be healthy. In the second case, on the other hand, we have done an exercise of imagination, we have thought about everything necessary and that we consider essential to do the action, and this is, in essence, as if we had already done the action with anteriority. It is like a mental simulation of the habit to acquire.

Bibliographic references:

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. UK. ISBN: 9780735211292
• Gollwitzer, Peter & Brandstätter, Veronika. (1997). Implementation Intentions and Effective Goal Pursuit. First publ. in: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73 (1997), 1, pp. 186-199. 73. 10.1037/0022-3514.73.1.186.