In this era of COVID-19 you have a hard time avoiding advice about washing your hands frequently and avoiding touching your face. As a public health matter, w88 sports betting app is clearly good advice. I’m all for both of these things.
As a psychologist, however, I can tell you that “good advice” is one of the weakest forms of behavior change known to science. Any parent reading this blog realizes that, of course. Let me reconfirm the obvious: just telling people what to do is often useless. And that is especially true when the advice has to do with mindless, habitual actions, like biting your nails; saying “you know”; leaving the toilet seat up; or, well, touching your face.
Let’s start with some facts: People touch their face. A lot. I mean a lot, a lot. I mean nearly constantly. I should know. I’m one of a small number of scientists who ever seriously studied w88 sports betting app.
Over 40 years ago, I did a series of studies on face-touching with a professor of mine, Norm Cavior, and then particularly with my new colleague at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Rosemery O. Nelson. We wanted to study how behavior changed if and when you self-monitored w88 sports betting app. What was needed was an action that occurred regularly, was easy to see from across the room, and that was viewed as being slightly negative when w88 sports betting app was pointed out, so there would be some motivation to change w88 sports betting app.
Face-touching ticked all of these boxes.
When we recorded how often people touch their face when they don’t know they are being observed w88 sports betting app came in at .5 to 3 times a minute, depending on the task.
Do the math. That means if we are awake for 16 hours, we touch our faces hundreds or even thousands of times a day.
Most of us are a little embarrassed when our face-touching is pointed out. w88 sports betting app seems slightly self-focused (there is some truth to that). w88 sports betting app can include things that are gross, like nose-picking, finger sucking, or nail-biting. And yes, health-wise, w88 sports betting app is actually not a great thing to do. w88 sports betting app can contribute to skin problems, and germs can hitchhike to the inside of our bodies through our eyes, nose, or mouth.
We do w88 sports betting app anyway.
So how can we change w88 sports betting app?
One method that we found works is impossible to apply: You can remind people constantly. In one of our studies we got face-touching to go down if we reminded people every minute or two not to do w88 sports betting app. There are two problems: First, other than your mother, who would do that? Second, after a day or two of that you’d be ready to slap someone.
We did, however, find a practical method that reduced w88 sports betting app by 65 to 95 percent. In our research, this method worked short term or long term. As long as you applied w88 sports betting app, there was no fall off.
So what is the trick?Get a prominent device and measure your face-touching.
Count the touches. w88 sports betting app does not matter what the device is as long as w88 sports betting app is easily visible, you can carry w88 sports betting app with you, and you are willing to use w88 sports betting app. w88 sports betting app could be a golf counter, a sheet of graph paper, or the lap timer on your smartphone. Just religiously record every single time you touch your face and within minutes w88 sports betting app will drop to a rate low enough that you can keep track of w88 sports betting app for a long time without disruption.
When the participants in our study were not counting, they mindlessly touched their faces whenever the urge came up, leading to a lot of face-touching (about a dozen times every five minutes). However, as soon as we instructed them to start counting, face-touching went down dramatically. Moreover, touches stayed low as long as people continued to count, even if counting went on for up to 9 weeks. Thestudy was publishedin Science Direct’s Behavior Research and Therapy publication.
Additional research showed there’s a good reason why the device with which you count should be prominent: Its very presence soon reminds you not to touch your face.
And w88 sports betting app turns out that counting works even if you are not all that accurate: Just the effort to track w88 sports betting app honestly creates the effect.
No, counting is not a “one and done” cure for the face-touching habit: As soon as the participants stopped counting, they returned to touching their face just as frequently as before. Thus, in order to continue benefiting from this method, you need to continue using w88 sports betting app.
I never thought this research would be directly useful. w88 sports betting app was just “a preparation” (as scientists say) to study the reactivity of self-assessment. To be honest, I haven’t thought about this research in many years. But COVID-19 has changed a lot of things, and here I am, sitting in my easy chair sheltered in place in my house, with my graph paper next to me, chronic face-toucher that I am.
One ... two ... uh-oh, threeee ...
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., is a w88 sports betting app Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology in the College of Science at the w88 sports betting app, Reno. This article was originally published in Psychology Today on March 25, 2020.
