January might be a good time to set a new goal.
With the holiday season underway, thoughts may soon turn to New Year's resolutions as many seek to eradicate bad habits and establish new and healthier ones. But do New Year's resolutions actually work — and is Jan. 1 the best time for a new goal?
Do New Year's resolutions work?The"fresh start effect," proposed in a 2014 study in the journal Management Science , suggests that events like New Year's, birthdays, holidays or even the beginning of a week or month are associated with an increase in aspirational behavior.
"Throughout our waking hours, we act in pursuit of what we most desire at that precise point in time — not an hour ago, a day ago or five minutes ago," he said."That is why it is so often hard to do things we set out to do. When the time comes, we forget what it was we planned or some other desire turns out to be stronger."
The 'intention-behavior' gapSusan Michie , a professor of health psychology and director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at UCL, told Live Science that another psychological phenomenon can impact how people respond to their New Year's resolutions. A 2016 review, published in the journal Health Psychology , looked into the impact of changing attitudes, norms and self-efficacy on health-related behaviors such as exercise and dieting. The researchers found that inducing changes in the participants' attitudes, norms and self-efficacy, led to medium-size changes in behavior, in areas such as diet, condom use and stopping smoking.