Breaking (bad) habits — Dr. Pippa Lally | Briefing Knowledge Leaders 2022

Dr Phillippa Lally is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Surrey. She is a behavioural scientist who has been researching habits for over 15 years. Dr Lally conducted the first study to investigate how habits form in everyday lives. In this study the average time it took for people to form a new habit was 66 days, although Dr Lally is keen to point out that there was a lot of variation, with some people forming habits quicker and others taking much longer. Dr Lally works to understand how to help people to form the habits they want and to break the ones they don’t. She then uses this knowledge to design interventions to help people to change their behaviours.