6.4 Creatures of Habit Flashcards
Stairs prominent, elevators out of sight
Trying to make new behaviours, making habits
People who seem to do the hard things every day consistently are just experts of building good habits
sd
To build habits, we just need to understand the __________ behind our routines
psychology
Making public post on Facebook is an example of
committing yourself, and getting +ve feedback from supportive friends
Willpower is not the best way to achieve our…
goals, especially long term goals. It pervades our culture.
If you try not to think about something, it’s hard not to think about it. This is related to how we suppress our desires
sd
How do we persist with long term goal?
Initial Thought: Self control and commitment with strong intentions. -> Not really true…
Update: Decision making and intentions are important at start of change. Sustaining changes require
High achievers (whom we associate with high willpower) don’t actually experience many temptations or desires.
For example, no cake in fridge, rather than resisting eating cake at all
Habits are like blinders. The more you ignore temptations, blinders become more strong.
Eventually, they stop being conscious and automatic whenever you are in a context that you trained the habit in.
Habits are not necessarily the easiest things you do, it’s the
most often thing you do
How long does it take to develop a habit?
If you are more spontaneous, it can take longer to form a habit. Complex behaviours with many parts take longer too.
Gym - 3-4 months
Drink Water - 2 months
Habits are both good and bad.
sd
Much of our lives are being run on autopilot
43% of everyday actions are done repeatedly in the same context
Health campaigns focus on conscious efforts, however…
although awareness increased, consumption did not as our eating is habitual. People eat based on the environment they are in, and the patterns they develop.
Changing people’s minds really only work for…
one off behaviour changes, like signups
Uber: Puts money into training drivers and they would quit. To fix this, the app pings at the end of one drive to signal another one, so they dont have time to…
think. This moves them forward through the process to the point that they become more comfortable and form habits to deal with customers
Same as Uber, Netflix does the…
autoplay for next episodes
How can we manipulate ourselves to form habits?
- Make easy, fun actions
- Study: People travel to gym. ~3.5 miles, they go to gym 5 times a month, 5 miles, they go 1 time a month.
- The distance increases friction
Friction: High means hard to do, low means easy
Stale popcorn study: Patrons watch trailers. Give popcorn to eat (some stale, some fresh). Ppl who dont eat popcorn ate lots of fresh, but avoid stale. Ppl who ate a lot of popcorn ate indiscriminately (70%). They all hated the stale popcorn.
People of habit, cues are so strong that they eat without thinking
Popcorn study 2: Right hand eat with left hand, left hand eat with right hand. Made eating more thoughtful. Strong habits ppl ate less stale popcorn.
To interrupt a bad habit…
find ways to make it more conscious and add more friction
Friction to eat more fruit
Europeans eat lots of fruit, but it was in a box to the side, so no one was eating it.
After putting it right in the line, it went immediately.
Same idea is elevator and staircase in that building
Why do we form bad habits?
They provide short term rewards
Rewards of habits
We get dopamine when we are rewarded
Dopamine helps build mental associations of habit in brain
Only certain types of rewards useful
Long term exercise and healthy eating don’t provide much dopamine
You have to link long term behaviours with rewards. Make veggies delicious, for example.
Cheat days don’t build habits, as the rewards aren’t there when you do the good action
Add things to behaviours to help build habits
Listen to good music when working out
Watch shows that you only watch when you work out
Habitual jogger
Challenge to find time (full family)
Have to find a time you can do it regularly
6 in the morning was hard, but it got easier each time.
Listening to radio, slept in running clothes to reduce friction, don’t have to worry after running
Consciousness helps, but not in the form if willpower. It helps in form of scheming in how to make actions as friction-less as possible
Pro Chefs
Train chefs with mise en place
Beginners just want to jump in and cook, but they find they need more stuff…
They have to learn to put everything in place before beginning, so they don’t think a lot while cooking
Metaphor for behaviour change. It takes work, but it makes it so much easier to automate other decisions
Increase cigarette friction
- Warning labels
- Remove vending machines
- Behind the counter
- Ban smoking in places
- Taxing cigs
Surprising that saying cigs would cause cancer has not that much effect. We act on autopilot mostly
3 additional ideas
Stacking/ Piggy backing: Taking an existing habit and adding a new action to it, eventually automating it
Cues: Popcorn study, smoking porch, wake up and have breakfast (then cue is to write for 2 hours)
Chaos: Cues can be thrown away. This is time to make a new habit and act more authentically. Ex, getting new job, relationship end
