The Vermont Center on Behavior and Health welcomes Mark E. Bouton, PhD to our last #VCBHLectureSeries of 2021. Dr. Bouton, University Distinguished Professor and Robert B. Lawson Green and Gold Professor of Psychology, will present “Context, Behavior Change, and Habit Learning” on Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 12 PM ET.

This presentation will focus on the research from Dr. Bouton’s lab that addresses the role of context in behavior change and habit learning, with some additional research on how habit learning works. The talk will discuss implications for lapse and relapse after behavior change and our understanding of habits and addiction. After this discussion, learners will be able to discuss evidence that behavior change does not destroy or erase the original behavior; that behavior change involves new learning that is very context-dependent, so that the original behavior can return or lapse when the context is changed; and describe different types of “context.” Learners should also be able to discuss why goal-directed voluntary behaviors become habits with repetition and practice; how habit learning is normally just another form of behavior change that does not erase goal-direction but instead interferes with it in a context-dependent way; and relate the findings to contemporary theories of habit and addiction.

Mark Bouton is an internationally-known expert in learning theory, with a longstanding interest in context, extinction and behavior change, and a more recent interest in the relationship between voluntary behaviors that are habitual versus goal-directed. His research has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institue on Drug Abuse) since 1981. He has received a number of awards, including the Gantt Medal from the Pavlovian Society and the Quad-L Award from the University of New Mexico. He is a fellow of several organizations, including the American Psychological Association (Divisions 1, 3, and 6), the Association for Psychological Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Eastern Psychological Association, of which he is a past president.