Persists
To persist is to last for a relatively longer period of time. When a behaviour persist for a relatively observable period of time, new neural connections are formed in the brain resulting in habit formation. Therefore, how long a behaviour persist has a role to play in learning of different habitual behaviour.
However, persistent behaviour also has clinical significance in understanding and diagnosis of psychological disorder. As per DSM 5, several disorders are grouped, classified and differentiated from each other depending upon the time for which it had persisted in the clinical scenario. For example, considering mood disorder: When an individual suffer from low mood, persistently over 2 years, with all other clinical symptoms less severe to be diagnosed with depression, the client is given the diagnosis of persistent depressive disorder or dysthymia. Similarly, depending upon the time of persistence and intensity, the diagnosis of cyclothymia is also done.