Situating Habit and Goal-Direction in a General View of Instrumental Behavior

This chapter reviews recent research from the author’s laboratory on habit and goal-direction in instrumental learning and then considers some of its implications for a general view of instrumental behavior and addiction. Results suggest that habit develops under conditions that allow the individual to pay less attention to its behavior, i.e., when the habit’s trigger cue reliably predicts the reward. Other results suggest that a behavior’s status as a habit is not necessarily fixed or permanent; several environmental manipulations can make a habitual behavior become goal-directed again. Habit is more context-specific than goal-direction. The perspective that emerges suggests that habit may have an important but perhaps more circumscribed role in instrumental behavior (and addiction) than might often be assumed. For example, drug seeking can appear adaptable and flexible because behaviors that are more distal to the goal (e.g., general search behaviors) may be goal-directed at the same time behaviors that are more proximal to the goal (e.g., actual drug-taking responses) are habitual. And individuals with substance use habits might not appear more habit-prone than controls when they are tested for habit in the context of the lab. These and other challenges that have been raised for the role of habit in addiction are discussed.