Old Habits Die Hard: Travel Habit Formation and Decay During an Office Relocation
Walker, Thomas and Verplanken followed workers at a pro-environmental charity in the United Kingdom, evaluated well before the organisation moved its headquarters to another town and again one and four weeks after the move. Travel habit, meaning behavioural automaticity, weakened right after the move, equally for those who changed travel mode and those who did not. For those who changed mode, habit strength for the old mode decayed gradually over the post-move period while habit strength for the new mode grew. Even when overt behaviour changes, the underlying automaticity does not disappear immediately.
Walker, Thomas and Verplanken followed workers at a pro-environmental charity in the United Kingdom, evaluated well before the organisation moved its headquarters to another town and again one and four weeks after the move. Travel habit, meaning behavioural automaticity, weakened right after the move, equally for those who changed travel mode and those who did not. For those who changed mode, habit strength for the old mode decayed gradually over the post-move period while habit strength for the new mode grew. Even when overt behaviour changes, the underlying automaticity does not disappear immediately.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Walker, I., Thomas, G. O., & Verplanken, B. (2015). Old Habits Die Hard: Travel Habit Formation and Decay During an Office Relocation. Environment and Behavior, 47(10), 1089-1106. doi:10.1177/0013916514549619