William James and the Psychology of Habits

 An Expansion on Sick Souls and Healthy Minds chp. 3

Jodi Carpenter- H02

        In our ever-changing lives, our old habits can seem to remain concrete fixtures that plague our existence despite the passage of time and our experiences with new circumstances. William James noted this phenomenon and the specific importance habits play in our lives in his book The Principles of Psychology. James's comprehension of the effects of habits is insightful, but I could not help but wonder how exactly habits form and how we can get rid of bad ones. Habits may not seem like that big of a deal at first glance, but Dr.Wendy Wood of USC has research that shows that 43% of our daily actions are done habitually. In this blogpost I hope to expand on the psychology of habits, including how they form and how to replace bad habits with good ones.

 

 The Plastic Brain   

       James's focus on habit provides integral insight into the nature of our cognitive processes and our brain's plasticity. James states, "Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed of their conduct while in the plastic state." It is true that our brain is most malleable before the age of 25 when the prefrontal cortex has yet to reach full development; however, our brain's neuroplasticity allows it to change and adapt to new circumstances throughout our entire lifetime, and new data shows that an individual's level of neuroplasticity can depend on a variety of factors outside age.

     

The Feedback Loop

    With this in mind, how does neuroplasticity allow our brains to develop new habits? The answer can be found in the psychological studies conducted after William James's time. B.F. Skinner was one behavioral psychologist who, like James, experimented with animals to find insight into what causes our own behavior. Skinner and other behaviorists have shown that behavior is a response directed by cue-action associations. So to form a habit, you first need to develop a cue. This cue can be something like your morning breath which causes you to brush your teeth, or it can be something like feeling stressed out which causes you to want a cigarette. Smoking a cigarette is the behavior caused by the cue, or what we would consider the "habit". After we finish the behavior, we get a reward. This reward could be feeling less stressed from smoking or having minty fresh breath from brushing your teeth. These are the three factors that create our habits: the cue, the behavior, and the reward. After we have repeated the habit, a new factor gets added to this trio: the craving. James Clear describes this habit loop in more detail:

Here is a video that helps explain how habits form:

      Breaking the Cycle 

 So now that we know how our habits form, we can use our neuroplasticity to get rid of bad habits. Unfortunately, there is no singular best way to break a bad habit. Destroying our unwanted behaviors can depend on a variety of factors, including the severity and type of habit you are trying to break. One way to break the habit feedback loop is to the control the context cues. If you habitually stop at a coffee shop on your way to work everyday even though you want to quit drinking caffeine, then one way to break the feedback loop is to pick a new route to work that does not have a coffee shop along the way. Without the cue, the loop is not triggered. Meanwhile, you could also replace this habit with a good one such as drinking tea or water instead of coffee. This can work for a habit that is not too severe, but what would work for a strong habit like smoking? 

Mindfulness vs. Habits

    Pleasure-based habits are the hardest to break due to the release of dopamine, which has strong effects on your neurochemistry. Dopamine is what creates the strong craving that drives us to repeat our behaviors. New research involving becoming more aware of your mind during your unhealthy habits, otherwise known as mindfulness, has shown some evidence in helping to break bad habits. Our prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that shuts off when we default to our habits, so by paying attention to how we feel during our habitual behaviors, we activate the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain allows us to hold more abstract ideals and complex decision making which are necessary when remembering the reasons why we want to break the habit in the first place. By being more aware during our behaviors and allowing the prefrontal cortex to interrupt the feedback loop, we can exert more control over our behaviors. One psychiatrist named Judson Brewer studied participants who used mindfulness to try to quit smoking, and he told his participants to pay attention to how they felt when they smoked. One participant noted that smoking "smells like stinky cheese, and tastes like chemicals, yuck!" You can hear more about Brewer's research in this video:

In the end, I hope some of the research here can help you to create good habits or break bad ones. After all, William James was not the only philosopher to grasp the important effect our habitual behaviors have on us. Stoic philosophy revolves greatly on routine, and the stoic philosopher Epictetus stated, 

"capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running… therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it"

References: 

(links in text)

Harnessing the Power of Habits
Dynamic Brains and the Changing Rules of Neuroplasticity: Implications for Learning and Recovery
Habit Formation and Behavior Change
Breaking Bad Habits: Why it's so Hard to Change
The Power of Habits: What the Ancients Knew about Making Good Ones and Bad Ones
Breaking Bad Habits: Mindfulness as Medicine