Do we make New Year’s resolutions just to ignore them? Are promises mere doomed to failure? In this feature, we ask ourselves whether, statistically speaking, these resolutions work and what increases the chances of success.
New Year’s resolutions are an old tradition that continues to this day.
The Babylonians began each year with commitments to pay off debts and return the borrowed items.
The Romans began their year by promising the opposing god, Janus, that they would behave better.
In modern societies, many people still promise to make changes as the new year draws to a close; this desire, in many cases, is fueled by the excesses of the holiday period.
It seems that, more often than not, New Year’s resolutions revolve around weight loss, quitting smoking, reducing drinking, and exercising more.
While resolutions are popular, they are not always successful. In this article, we will dissect the evidence and answer the question: should we bother making New Year’s resolutions in 2021?
A 1989 study tracked 200 people living in Pennsylvania as they tried to make changes according to New Year’s resolutions.
On average, participants made 1.8 resolutions, the most common, to quit smoking or lose weight. Less often, people were committed to improving relationships and a surprisingly low 2.5% expected to control their consumption habits.
An impressive 77% managed to keep their promises for 1 week, but the success rate fell to 19% in two years. While this is a substantial dropout rate, it means that 1 in 5 of these participants achieved their goal.
Of the 77% of successful solvers, more than half slipped at least once, and on average people slipped 14 times over the two years.
A study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 1988 it followed the efforts of 153 New Year’s resolutives who were determined to quit smoking.
Within a month, 77% of participants had achieved at least a 24-hour abstinence period. Overall, however, the results seemed a bit disappointing with the authors’ writing:
“Only 13% of the sample abstained at 1 year and 19% declared abstinence from two-year follow-up ”.
Another study, which appears in PLOS ONE, took a more general look at the behavior. The research team tracked the food buying habits of 207 households from July 2010 to March 2011.
Not surprisingly, the researchers found that during the holiday period, spending increased by 15%. Three-quarters of that increase went to less healthy items.
Also, as expected, when it occurred in January, sales of healthy items increased 29.4%.
However, the sale of less healthy items did not fall in parallel with this health boost: people buy more nutritious items, but continue to buy the same amount of unhealthy foods.
In general, the number of calories they bought during the New Year was higher than in the holiday period. The authors conclude:
“Despite resolutions to eat healthier after New Year’s Eve, consumers can adapt to a new‘ status quo ’of less health.[ful] buy food during the holidays and doubtfully comply with your new year resolutions by spending more on health[ful] food “.
The authors believe that the key to successful resolutions is to focus on replacing unhealthy items with healthy ones, rather than buying them both.
This is good advice, but not necessarily easy to implement.
In 2009, GlaxoSmithKline launched Orlistat, which they hailed as “the first aid for weight loss without a clinically proven prescription” in Europe.
As part of its marketing drive, the company also conducted an online survey on weight loss that included questions about New Year’s resolutions.
Although the survey was not intended to be a scientific study, it generated a significant data set with 12,410 women from six European countries responding.
A group of researchers took advantage of this data set and published an analysis in the journal Data on obesity.
They found that about half of the women had lost weight in New Year’s resolution in the last 2 years.
As for success rates, they observed that women with a body mass index (BMI) less than 25 years old, whom health experts define as “normal,” were successful 20% of the time.
However, of people with a BMI of 30 or higher (whom doctors consider overweight or obese), only 9% reported success.
In the overweight group, three-quarters of the women surveyed said their main reason for not losing weight was that they took too long to see results. About a third of those who were obese or overweight stated that they were unsuccessful due to lack of confidence.
In the Pennsylvania study we mentioned above, the scientists found no link between the success rate and the sex or age of the participants; similarly, the type of resolution did not influence the probability that they would be successful.
The researchers contacted participants by telephone after one week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 2 years.
During these interviews, the researchers also asked participants what techniques they used to help them maintain their resolutions and how often they implemented each.
They found that the most successful solvers were applying stimulus control to the five control points.
Stimulus control is the act of keeping things around you that remind you why you chose the resolution.
For example, someone who quits may keep a photograph of their young child nearby to remind them why they decided to quit.
At 6 months and 2 years, successful resolvers used personal liberation (or willpower) and reinforcement management, rewarding themselves for success.
In contrast, people who did not maintain their resolutions more often employed self-blame and desire.
The study we highlighted earlier, which followed the fates of 153 smokers, also examined the factors that made smoking more likely. The authors explain:
“The use of multiple cessation strategies was associated with abstinence in two-year follow-up. It was found that a strong motivation to quit smoking was important for both initial success and long-term maintenance.
Other studies that have investigated smoking cessation more generally have identified factors that increase the chances of quitting. These factors include staying away from smoky environments, abstaining from alcohol, stress control techniques, and willpower.
Another paper took a different approach. Publishing his work in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the authors set out to understand why some people were successful when others failed.
To do so, they recruited two groups of participants: 159 New Year’s solvers and 123 people interested in solving a problem later. The researchers followed the participants for 6 months and traced their successes and failures.
According to other studies, the most common reasons for New Year’s resolutions were weight loss, increased exercise, and smoking cessation.
The authors found that the most successful solvers used more willpower, stimulus control, reinforcement management, positive thinking, and avoidance strategies.
In contrast, those who were less successful used to use the most desirable thinking, blame and criticize themselves, and analyze the problem.
Some of the above results could overshadow ambitions for change in 2021, but they should not.
The authors of the previous study made some general conclusions that should increase the confidence of any New Year’s resolutive:
“Resolvers reported higher success rates than those who were not; at 6 months, 46% of resolutionists were continuously successful compared to 4% of non-resolvers. “
So while cards can be stacked against anyone who plans to make a New Year’s resolution by simply making that resolution, you’ve increased your chances of success.
According to this data, forming a New Year’s resolution increases your chances of generating changes more than ten times.
The authors write that:[C]continuously in the general public opinion, a considerable proportion of New Year’s resolutions, in fact, are successful, at least in the short term. “
In conclusion, New Year’s resolutions don’t work for everyone. But, as the saying goes, “you have to be there to win it.”
If you are considering making a resolution for 2021, based on the results of these studies, the best approach is to keep things around you to remind you why you want to make these changes.
Also, reward yourself for successes and stay motivated. Throw a good dose of willpower into the seasonal mix and you’re likely to succeed. Good luck!