Plotting the Unseen Habits: Modelling the Process of Forming a New Mental Habit of Gratitude Thinking

Past studies suggested behavioural habits were formed upon repetition following an asymptotic curve. The present study examined if the asymptotic curve similarly described the process of mental habit formation. 180 Chinese college students were asked to do gratitude thinking before sleeping every night for 84 days. They reported daily their habit automaticity and whether they have done gratitude thinking last night. Afterwards, participants were followed up at 4-week and 12-week intervals to understand whether habits formed were maintained. 123 participants provided sufficient data for analysis over the 84-day period. 50 participants’ automaticity data fitted well out of 94 participants who were suitable for nonlinear regression fitting an asymptotic curve, showing mental habit formation process was similar to that of behavioural habits. Around 80% of participants reached in 72 days an automaticity which could sustain gratitude thinking for 4 weeks. In mental habit formation, number of repetition was of key importance but not consistency of repetition. Missing some of the repetitions was not detrimental to the process. Theoretically meaningful parameters could be produced. Methodological limitations, implications to practitioners and future research directions were further discussed.