10 checked facts

Habit

Everything on this site about habit — each one naming the study behind it.

The smell of citrus makes you act more cleanly.
A 2005 study found that people who were exposed to a lemon scent kept their environment significantly cleaner.…
You reach goals faster when you create an if-then plan.
Formulating 'if-then' statements increases the likelihood of goal attainment because it delegates control to the envir…
You view your past habits through an overly optimistic lens.
The 'false hope syndrome' describes a phenomenon where people fail in their attempts to change because they set unreal…
Expressing gratitude consistently rewires your daily outlook.
A 2003 study showed that writing about things you are grateful for increases well-being compared to focusing on daily …
You use the same solution for different problems.
You will stick to an inefficient solution for a problem because it worked on previous ones.…
You get more done by pairing chores with treats.
Temptation bundling increases adherence to difficult tasks by combining them with immediate gratification.…
You prefer the way things are by default.
The status quo bias describes the tendency to maintain a current state because the potential losses of changing are pe…
You like things more simply because you have seen them.
A 1968 study found that increasing the frequency of exposure to nonsense words increased the affective ratings (liking…
A minor lapse in control leads to a total collapse.
The 'what-the-hell' effect describes how a small violation of a goal leads to the abandonment of that goal entirely.…
Simply seeing something repeatedly makes you like it more.
The mere exposure effect dictates that your preference for a stimulus increases with the frequency of your encounters …