The habituated character of habits of mind is also reflected in Lim‟s (2008) notion of
spontaneous anticipation by a student—when he or she immediately anticipates and carries out
an action for a situation based on the first idea that comes to mind. Whereas Cuoco, Goldenberg,
and Mark‟s (1996) notion of habits of mind has a positive connotation, Lim‟s spontaneous
anticipation can be either desirable or undesirable. Interiorized anticipation is desirable in that
“one spontaneously proceeds with an idea without having to analyze the problem situation
because one has interiorized the relevance of the anticipated action to the situation at hand”
(p. 45). Interiorized anticipation is similar to Mason and Spence‟s notion of knowing-to.
Impulsive anticipation, on the other hand, is undesirable in that “one spontaneously proceeds
with an idea that comes to mind, without analyzing the problem situation and without
considering the relevance of the anticipated action to the problem situation” (p. 44).
Lim notes that a habit of mind can also be regarded as a cognitive disposition—a tendency to
act, mentally, in a certain way in response to certain situations. When a person has a particular
habit of mind, he or she has a disposition to act according to that habit of mind. Lim (2009,
January) uses the term impulsive disposition to refer to the proclivity of “doing whatever first
comes to mind … or diving into the first approach that comes to mind” (Watson & Mason, 2007,
p. 207). Lim (2009, January) offered the following strategies to address impulsive disposition:
(a) do not teach algorithms and formulas prematurely; (b) pose problems that necessitate a
particular algorithm or concept, that intrigue students, that require students to attend to the
meaning of numbers and symbols, and that require students to explain and justify; (c) include
contra-problems to promote skepticism; and (d) include superficially-similar-but-structurallydifferent
problems on tests and examinations.