Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1992, 33, 170- 177

The importance of routines for the performance of everyday activities

TOMMY GARLING Department of Psychology, Umed University, Umed, Sweden

Girling, T. (1992). The importance of routines for the performance of everyday activities. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 33, 170- 177.

Whether the weekly frequency with which everyday activities (e.g., taking a shower, iunning for exercise) are performed is determined by intentions to perform the activities at different frequencies rather than by routines was investigated. Sixty-four subjects participated in an experiment in which self-reported frequency of performance of 10 activities was predicted from indicated intentions as well as from self-reports of the frequency with which the activities were performed a previous week. The results were as expected for a few of the activities, whereas for a majority of them performance was predicted from previous frequency without the mediation of intentions. Consistent with the conclusion that routines played a more important role than intentions, it was also found that intentions failed to predict performance better the following week than it predicted performance the week after that week. Conditions under which intentions may be a more important determinant were discussed. Key words: Attitude-behavior consistency, subjective well-being, decision making, leisure activities. T. Gcirling, Department of Psychology, Umed University, S-90 187 Umed, Sweden

How much time people devote to various everyday activities have attracted interest in recent studies in social psychology (Brandstltter, 1983; Emmons & King, 1988; Sjiiberg & Mag- neberg, 1990; Zirkel & Cantor, 1990) and environmental psychology (Ahrentzen et al., 1989), perhaps primarily because of the information such studies is assumed to provide about life satisfaction (Diener, 1984; Palys & Little, 1983). However, observed time use does not in itself tell how satisfied people are. To infer this, more detailed knowledge is needed about why people choose to spend various amounts of time in different activities as well as how they experience the outcomes of their choices.

Reiser et al., (1985) conceive of activities as “self-contained” in the sense that they lead to one or more goals. Consistent with this assertion, Garling et al. (1989) found that many everyday activities which people report they are engaged in (Szalai et al., 1972), such as, for instance, preparing food, gardening, and outings, were believed to lead to goals important for life satisfaction. Furthermore, the more instrumental for the attainment of such goals, the more the activities were preferred. Thus, a relationship is implied between the choice of time spent in everyday activities and expectations of life satisfaction. However, it remains to be shown that time allocation is related to preference.

Garling (1992) hypothesized that people form intentions to perform everyday activitities at certain frequencies. Examples are that people, for instance, intend to run for exercise once a week, take a shower every morning, go the movies once a month and so forth. In accordance with the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen; 1985,1988), it was found that such intentions were predicted from how much performing the activities at certain frequencies were preferred and the degree of control which were perceived to be exercised over their performance at different frequencies. When correlations between intended and self-reported frequencies of performance of the activities were computed across subjects, most of the activities were

Scand J Psycho1 33 (1992) The importance of routines 171

furthermore predicted from intentions. However, with one exception the predictions from preference and perceived control were superior. In addition, many activities were on average performed less frequently than intended. Although not conclusive evidence, such underpre- dictions should be expected if subjects do not intend to perform the activities at certain frequencies.

The assumption is often made that everyday activities are repeatedly performed to the point where their performance become automatically controlled (Rods et al., 1989). This is also emphasized by script theory (Abelson, 1981; &hank, 1982; Abelson & Schank 1977). If so, intentions may play no role for performance. This certainly pertains to actions forming constituent parts of activities (e.g., Galambos & Rips, 1982; Nottenburg & Schoben, 1980; Reiser et al., 1985). However, it must be questioned whether it is true of the activities themselves if they are conceived of as instrumental for attaining various salient goals. Yet, Bentler & Speckart (1979, 1981) and Fredricks & Dossett (1983) actually found that, for some activities, habit or routine was a more important determinant of performance than intentions.

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether the results obtained by Bentler & Speckart (1979, 1981) and Fredricks & Dossett (1983) apply more generally to the frequencies with which everyday activities are performed. The procedure followed in Garling (1992) was slightly changed to mirror that employed in these previous studies. Subjects were requested on one occasion to report how frequently they performed the activities the preceding week and how frequently they intended to do it a following week, then to come back the week after the latter week and report how frequently they had performed the activities. Because the frequencies of performance of the activities reported on the second occasion could be predicted from both the frequencies reported on the first occasion and the intention indicated on that occasion, it would be possible to determine which one is the best predictor of Performance. In accordance with the hypothesis proposed by Garling (1992), intentions were expected to be a better predictor than previous frequency of most, although perhaps not of all activities.

A distinction can be made between the role of intention for performance of everyday activities (e.g., taking a shower, running for exercise) at regular weekly rates' and its role for the timing of the activities during a week. The distinction is similar to that between forming a schematic and a detailed plan (Garling et al., 1984; Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1979). Even though intentions are formed to perform everyday activities at certain frequencies as suggested by Garling (1992), additional reasons for why intended frequencies did not predict observed frequencies particularly well may be discerned at the level of the detailed plan. Following Fazio (1986) and Triandis (1977), it may be assumed that intentions to perform activities having immediate affective consequences (as well as, or rather than, less affective longer-term consequences) are more often formed at a late stage. Performance of such activities may thus be more impulsive, depending as it does on situational cues. Furthermore, as noted by Kuhl (1987), intentions which have been formed are sometimes difficult to maintain.

If the performance of everyday activities are determined by intentions which are formed at a late stage, one should expect underpredictions of actual frequencies to increase the earlier subjects indicate their intentions. Since difficulty in maintaining intentions is likely to increase with time, overpredictions are expected to occur in such cases. Furthermore, becaue there certainly is individual differences in how early intentions are formed, as well as in difficulty to maintain intentions, one should over time expect less accurate predictions of performance

'Weekly rate may be chosen because of its saliency in everyday life (Larsen & Kasimatis, 1990).

172 T. Gcirling Scand J Psycho1 33 (1992)

across subjects. If, on the other hand, activities are performed routinely without mediating intentions, there does not seem to be any reason to expect such changes in accuracy. To test these different implications, when required on the first occasion to indicate their intentions, different groups of subjects did that for the immediately following week or for the week after that week. More accurate predictions of actual frequencies from intentions were expected in the group of subjects who indicated their intentions to perform the set of everyday activities at different frequencies the following week.

METHOD

Material The same 10 everyday activities as in Girling (1992) were used (see Table 1). The activities were fairly important ones which the student population from whom subjects were recruited were expected to perform from never or very seldom to daily. They had originally been selected from a larger set of leisure activities which people are known from time use studies to be frequently engaged in (GHrling et al., 1989).

Procedure Subjects, who served individually or in small groups of from two to four, were told that the aim of the study was to investigate preferences for lesiure activities. They participated in two sessions which they were led to believe were unrelated. In both sessions subjects filled out a questionnaire in the laboratory while being supervised by a female experimenter. The 6rst session took about 20 minutes, the second session about 10 minutes. Half of the subjects, assigned to the Delay condition, participated in the first session two weeks before a target week, whereas the other half of the subjects, assigned to the No Delay condition, participated in the first session the week before. All subjects returned for the second session the week after the target week which was the same week for both groups.

In the questionnaire filled out in the first session some background questions were first asked, then subjects indicated with which frequency they had performed each of the activities the last week (Monday through Sunday) and with which frequency they intended to do it the following week or the week following after that week (Monday through Sunday). For each activity there was a separate page where subjects checked one of nine boxes labelled never, once, and so forth to more than seven times. The activities appeared in individually randomized orders. The order between the ratings of frequencies and intentions was counterbalanced across conditions and sex. A number of unrelated tasks were performed before the second task in order to impair subjects' memory of how they responded in the 6rst task. After subjects had performed the second task, they were furthermore required to answer a number of questions about each of the activities. The purpose was to make it more difEcult for subjects to remember in the second session how they responded in the first session?

In the second session subjects only answered the questionnaire about how often they had performed each activity the week before.

Subjects Sixty-four students at University of UmeP, half of them women and half of them men, participated in return for payment. They were all unmarried and lived in student dormitories. Equally many subjects were randomly assigned to the No Delay and Delay conditions with the restriction that there were equally many men as women.

RESULTS Means and SDs of the ratings in each condition are given in Table 1. ANOVAs performed for each activity, separately on intentions and ratings of frequencies, yielded some significant

'Questions asked during debriefing indicated that subjects were poor at recalling how they responded in the first session.

W d J Psychol 33 (1992) The importance of routines 173

Table 1 . Mean frequency with which everydny activities were intended to be performed on 1st occasion, mean frequency on 1st occasion with which they were performed, and mean frequency on 2nd occasion with which they were performed by subjects in No Delay and Delay conditions

Activity

Cleaning Taking a shower Running Having wine Talking to parents Inviting friends Dining out Going to a disco Going to the movies Watching the TV news

No Delay Delay

Performance Performance Performance Performance Intention 1st occasion 2nd Occasion Intention 1st occasion 2nd occasion

M SD M

0.7 0.8 0.8 5.1 2.6 5.7 1 . 1 1.9 1 .1 0.5 0.8 0.7 1.9 1.9 2.3 0.9 1.4 1.3 0.7 1.2 0.8 0.3 0.8 0.2 0.3 0.9 0.4 3.2 2.9 3.4

S D M SD M SD M SD M SD

0.6 0.7 0.5 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.7 0.8 0.7 2.0 5.3 2.0 5.7 2.0 5.8 1.9 5.8 2.0 1.7 1 . 1 1.8 0.8 1.6 0.6 1 . 1 0.5 1.2 1.2 0.8 1.2 0.9 1.0 0.8 1.0 1.5 1 . 1 1.6 2.8 2.0 2.1 2.5 2.9 2.4 2.8 2.4 1.7 1.2 1.5 0.9 1.4 1 . 1 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.3 1.0 1.3 0.5 0.9 1.4 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.8 0.5 0.7 0.9 1.5 0.6 0.2 0.6 0.3 0.8 1.2 0.5 0.2 0.4 2.4 3.5 2.4 3.6 3.2 3.4 2.5 3.2 2.1

effects on the former. Subjects in the Delay condition intended to clean reliably more frequently than subjects in the No Delay condition, F( 1, 60) = 5.09, p < 0.05. The same was true of intentions to have wine, F( 1, 60) = 4.76, p < 0.05. Subjects in the Delay condition furthermore intended to go to a disco reliably more often, F( 1, 60) = 4.35, p < 0.05. A single reliable sex difference was that men intended to go to the movies more often than women, F(1 , 60) =4 .10 ,p ~ 0 . 0 5 .

Table 2 shows that except for one activity in the No Delay condition (cleaning) and four activities in the Delay condition (inviting friends, dining out, going to a disco, and going to the movies) modest but significant correlations' were obtained across subjects between intentions and reported frequencies on the second occasion. Except for going to a disco in the No Delay condition, having wine in the No Delay condition, and going to the movies in both conditions, significant correlations were also obtained between the reported frequencies on the first and second occasions. In support of the alternative hypothesis that the activities are performed without the mediation of intentions, several of the latter correlations remained significant when intentions were partialled out. Activities for which intentions seemed to play a mediating role were in the No Delay condition dining out, going to a disco, and going to the movies, in the Delay condition having wine and talking to parents. Whether performance was predicted from previous frequencies or intentions, the only reliable difference between the No Delay and Delay conditions was that for dining out. As can be seen in Table 2, for that activity prediction was much better from intentions in the No Delay condition. Furthermore, mean frequencies are underpredicted for most of the activities in both conditions but not reliably more in the Delay condition. The underpredictions are reliable for two activities in both conditions (having wing and talking to parents) and for one more activity in the No Delay condition (dining out).

'Even though the analyses on the mean ratings, as reported, yielded one sex difference, this was not true of the patterns of correlations. The correlations are therefore reported for all subjects.

Tabl

e 2.

Corr

elat

ions

bet

ween

per

form

ance

of

ever

yday

act

iviti

es o

n 1s

t (F,) an

d 2n

d oc

casio

ns (F2), corr

elat

ions

of p

erfo

rman

ce w

ith in

tent

ions

(I),

and

corr

elat

ions

of

perf

orm

ance

on

1st

and

2nd

occa

sions

with

inte

ntio

ns pa

rtial

led

out f

or s

ubje

cts

in th

e N

o D

elay

and

Del

ay c

ondi

tions

, res

pect

ivel

y

No

Del

ay

Del

ay

Diff

eren

ce

Act

ivity

F-

I ~

F,

F~

IF^

rF

iFZ

I

F-l

~

FI

F~

~

IF

Z

~F

IF

~

I F-

1 ‘F

I F1

rl

Fz

~F

~F

~

I

Cle

anin

g 0.

0 0.

35l

0.17

0.

32

-0.3’

0.4

9’

0.60

’ 0.

50’

0.3’

-0

.14

-0.4

3 -0

.18

Taki

ng a

sho

wer

0.

2 0.8

6’

0.67’

0.7

4’

0.1

0.85

’ 0.

89’

0.52’

0.

1 -0

.01

-0.2

2 0.

22

Run

ning

0.

0 0.

94’

0.78’

0.

8S3

-0.3

0.7

1’

0.47

’ 0.6

0’

0.3

0.23

0.

31

0.15

Invi

ting

frie

nds

0.3

0.53

2 0.

56*

0.50

2 0.

3 0.

43’

0.27

’ 0.

35‘

0.0

0.10

0.

29

0.15

Hav

ing

win

e 0.

3’

0.58

’ 0.

37‘

0.52’

0.6

’ 0.

32

0.44

‘ 0.

17

-0.3

0.

26

-0.0

7 0.

35

Talk

ing

to p

aren

ts

0.9’

0.62’

0.

59’

0.48’

0.7

’ 0.4

9’

0.81

’ 0.

01

0.2

0.13

-0

.22

0.47

Din

ing

out

0.32

0.

653

0.76’

0.

30

0.2

0.36

’ 0.

10’

0.35

’ 0.

1 0.

29

0.66’

-0

.05

Goi

ng t

o a

disc

o 0.

2 0.

29

0.41

’ 0.

12

0.3

0.40

’ 0.

24

0.35’

-0.1

-0

.11

0.17

-0

.24

Goi

ng t

o th

e m

ovie

s -0

.1

0.17

0.

40’

0.11

-0.1

0.

29

0.1 1

0.

27

0.0

-0.1

2 0.

29

-0.2

6 W

atch

ing

the

TV n

ews

0.3

0.79

’ 0.6

0’

0.67’

-0

.4

0.74

3 0.6

6’

0.4S

2 0.

7 0.

05

-0.0

6 0.

22

Mea

n 0.

2 0.

58

0.53

0.

46

0.1

0.51

0.

46

0.36

0.

1 0.

04

0.07

0.

08

’p <

0.05

. 2p

< 0.

01.

Scand J Psycho1 33 ( 1992) The importance of routines 175

DISCUSSION Based on the correlational analyses showing that previous frequencies predicted the fre- quencies with which most of the everyday activities were performed without the mediation of intentions, it is concluded that habits or routines play a more important role than inten- tions. The similar conclusion reached by Bentler & Speckart (1979, 1981) and Fredricks & Dossett (1983) were thereby extended to a larger sample of everyday activities. That intentions failed to predict performance better the following week than it predicted perfor- mance the week after that week is furthermore consistent with this interpretation of the results.

It should, however, also be noted that intentions appeared to predict the performance of some of the activities, and that it did so in the condition where subjects indicated their intentions for the following week rather than for the week after that week. Since the mean frequencies of these activities also tended to be underpredicted, support was obtained for the alternative interpretation, offered by Garling (1992), that intentions to perform some of the activities were formed late because of their impulsive timing. In fact, intentions predicted activities like dining out, going to a disco, and going to the movies which appear to be more impulsive and less r ~ u t i n e . ~

A problem which deserves more attention in future research is why some activities are mediated by intentions to perform the activities at certain frequencies, whereas the frequen- cies at which others are performed appear to be more strongly determined by routine. In such research it is necessary to consider the possibility that this may vary depending on different factors. One such factor may still be how instrumental performance of the activities is perceived to be for the attainment of current gsals or strivings (Zirkel & Cantor, 1990). However, this factor is possibly more dynamic than presently conceived of. Consider as an example routinely taking a shower every morning. If finding a new date becomes a current goal, frequency of performance of this activity may change to being controlled by intentions. Since frequency of performance does not necessarily change for this reason, the example also highlights that routine cannot be equated with observed frequency. Ronis et af. (1989) similarly note that frequency of performance is not likely to be perfectly correlated with the degree to which performance of an activity is automatically controlled. It would be desirable in future studies to complement the present method of using the correlation between frequencies of performance on different occasions. Ratings or some other method, such as, for instance, experience sampling (Hormuth, 1986), could be used. It would also be desirable to obtain some measure of how instrumental the activities are perceived to be for the attainment of current goals.

If subjects had no intentions to perform the activities at certain frequencies, they should have indicated so. However, rather few did (from 11.1% to 36.5% of all subjects indicated for the different activities that they never intended to perform them), even when the correlational analysis suggested that intentions. played no mediating role. In general intended frequency was found to correlate as high with previous frequency of performance as with subsequent frequency. Given the way intentions are presently defined, a plausible interpretation is that

"The interpretation of activities as routine or nonroutine is partly based on data from a pilot study in which subjects (n = 40) were asked to rate their performance of each activity on a scale indicating how routinely it is usually performed. The average rank order from most to least routine was: taking a shower, talking to parents, cleaning, watching the Tv news, running, inviting friends, going to a disco, going to the movies, having wine, and dining out. In contrast ratings of degree of impulsiveness provided the following rank order: going to the movies, having wine, dining out, running, inviting friends, watching the TV news, going to a disco, cleaning, talking to parents, and taking a shower.

116 T. Garling Scand J Psycho1 33 ( 1992)

the intentions did not change from one week t o another. However, an alternative interpreta- tion which further studies need to rule out is that subjects when asked to indicate their intentions instead recalled how often they usually perform the activities. As has been discussed (Ajzen, 1985; Warshaw & Davies, 1986), subjects may fail to make a clear distinction between how strong intentions they have t o perform an activity and the strength with which they believe they will perform it.

This study was financially supported by grants Nos. 366186,261187. and 37/88 from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The author thanks Karin Emgrund for assistance in collecting the data, Anders B%k, Jargen Garvill, Erik Lindberg, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments.

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Received 30 October 1990