The present paper tries to derive theoretically the impact of habit-strength on repeated, everyday behaviour. In accordance with Bargh (1989) it is assumed that "habit" represents a goal-directed type of automaticity through wich not only the performance of repeated behaviour itself is activated automatically, but the activation of the intentional structure too. Data from 244 car-owning students are used to test the impact of habit-strength on the car use of these students in the context of visiting university lectures. In this study habit is not measured via past behaviour frequency, but via a "script-based" habit-measure developed by Verplanken et al. (1994). The intentional structure determining behavior are operationalized by the constructs of Ajzen's "Theory of Planned Behaviour". The results of hierarchically subjective norm and perceived behavioural control habit exerts a significant conducted linear and logistic regression models are the following: after controlling the effect of intention habit exerts a significant main effect on behaviour. The interaction effect of habit and intention on behaviour is significant and negative. After controlling the effects of attitude toward the behaviour, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control habit exerts a significant main effect on intention. The effect of the interaction "habit x norm"is significant too. (A)
Abstract