How minds differ
Habits and deliberate choices
In shortThe brain can think a choice through or repeat what worked before; the more repeated a situation, the more habit leads.
The idea
The brain has two ways of acting. One is thinking about the goal and choosing the route, which takes effort. The other is repeating what worked before, quickly and without effort: habit. The more predictable and repeated a situation, the more habit takes over. That is why asking someone to ‘think before you act’ does little in situations that have repeated for a long time, and why changing the context changes more than good advice.
What to try
- To change a habit, change the context that calls it up: another place, another order, another object to hand.
- Put the new behaviour in the same place at the same time every day, until it stops taking effort.
- Use deliberate choices for what is new, and do not expect from them what only habit can do.
The common mistake
Relying on willpower to change something that happens the same way every day.
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How the predictive brain shapes what we see, feel and do, with many everyday examples.
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The science behind itHow strong the evidence is, the model, videos and references.
How strong the evidence is
Well established Many studies, with results that repeat.
Dolan and Dayan (2013) review the distinction between goal-directed (model-based) and habitual (model-free) control. In active inference, habits are priors over policies learned through repetition; FitzGerald, Dolan and Friston (2014) show how model averaging favours habitual policies when they reduce complexity without losing accuracy. Wood and Rünger (2016) review evidence that habits are cued by context and resist changes in intention, and that context change (for example moving house or school) opens a window for new habits. For formulation: distinguish behaviours tied to stable cues from those that vary with goals, and test context changes before motivational interventions.
References
- Dolan, R. J., & Dayan, P. (2013). Goals and habits in the brain. Neuron, 80(2), 312–325.
- FitzGerald, T. H. B., Dolan, R. J., & Friston, K. J. (2014). Model averaging, optimal inference, and habit formation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 457.
- Wood, W., & Rünger, D. (2016). Psychology of habit. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 289–314.
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