ABSTRACT
Introduction: Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing and hand washing have been used as effective means to reduce virus transmission in the Netherlands. However, they pose a societal challenge as they require people to change their customary behaviours in various contexts. The science of habit formation is potentially useful for informing policy-making in public health, but the current literature largely overlooked the role of habit in predicting and explaining these preventive behaviours. Our research aimed to describe habit formation processes of physical distancing and hand washing and to estimate the influences of habit strength and intention on behavioural adherence. Methods: A longitudinal survey was conducted between July and November 2020 on a representative Dutch sample (n = 800). Respondents reported weekly their intention, habit strength, and actual adherence regarding six context-specific behaviours. Temporal developments of the measured variables were visualized, quantified, and mapped to five distinct phases of the pandemic. Regression models were used to test the effects of intention, habit strength, and their interaction on future adherence. Results: Dutch respondents generally had strong intention to adhere to all preventive measures and their actual adherence rates were between 70% and 90%. They also self-reported to experience their behaviours as more automatic over time, and this increasing trend in habit strength was more evident for physical distancing than hand washing behaviours. For all six behaviours, both intention and habit strength predicted future adherence (all ps < 2e-16). In addition, the predictive power of intention decreased over time and was weaker for respondents with strong habits for physical distancing when visiting supermarket (B = -0.63, p < .0001) and having guests at home (B = -0.54, p < .0001) in the later phases of the study, but not for hand washing. Conclusions: People’s adaptation to physical distancing and hand washing involves both intentional and habitual processes. For public health management, our findings highlight the importance of using contextual cues to promote habit formation, especially for maintaining physical distancing practice. For habit theories, our study provides a unique data set that covers multiple health behaviours in a critical real-world setting.