Bad habits, the brain and Mount Holyoke students

This week, MHN Health & Science chose to address some of the psychology of bad habits — from excessive technology use to procrastination — that plague Mount Holyoke students. From a Peer Health Educators event in Blanchard Campus Center to discussions happening on the national media stage, people are looking for solutions. The discovery of habits’ origins is more relevant than ever.

New research sheds light on the origins of habits and how to fix them

BY FIONA HINDS ’21

In her book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits,” social psychologist Wendy Wood seeks to give the public realistic advice for how to break habits. At Mount Holyoke, several psychology professors are grappling with the same topic.

From her work, she sees the task of nurturing positive behaviors and quelling less productive ones as an interplay between conscious and unconscious behaviors. Wood claims that our brains have “multiple separate but interconnected mechanisms that guide behavior.” However, many of these mechanisms reside in the unconscious, meaning that the power of our conscious decision-making abilities may be overestimated.

According to The New Yorker, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans have proven that learning a new task causes activity in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, regions of the brain that are associated with decision-making and executive control.

Once the task loses its novelty, brain activity moves into the putamen and the basal ganglia, which Wood considers to be “the rudimentary machinery of our minds.” Once there, the task is turned into a habit. These regions of the brain use less energy. Through a process called “chunking,” similar sequences of actions become linked and grouped together. This allows for the conscious mind to focus on other, less familiar activities.

Using a research technique called “experience sampling,” where participants report on topics like thoughts and behaviors, Wood found that the actions of her participants were habitual 43 percent of the time. This may help explain why conscious knowledge is often not enough to change behavior.

So what can we do? In the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment where children were told not to eat the marshmallows that were placed in front of them, the children whose marshmallows were hidden from view lasted significantly longer than children whose marshmallows were in plain sight.

In another study, college students were asked to note the amount of times they showed unproductive behavior, such as when they procrastinated or stayed up too late. Changing the environment, rather than distraction from a temptation or resolving to do better, resulted in the greatest behavioral change.

Visiting lecturer in psychology and education Kelley O’Carroll believes that perhaps “hiding the marshmallow” is not so simple.

“Sometimes the context cues are out of our control. The extent to which you can control your environment is in many ways a measure of how privileged you are,” she said. “In fact, some recent research is expanding the way in which we view findings from the marshmallow test. Social and economic backgrounds, for instance, seem to play a big role as well.”

Charles Duhigg, author of the book “The Power of Habit,” also believes that habitual routines are driven by cues and rewards. For instance, McDonald’s restaurants all look similar to trigger habitual eating routines. Moreover, Pepsodent, an early brand of toothpaste, was able to establish itself as a brand not only because of the positive effects of using toothpaste, but also because of the way it made teeth feel. Citric acid and mint oil, ingredients used in their toothpaste, make the mouth feel tingly, acting as the reward in this scenario.

Wood and Duhigg believe that, while habits are not conscious, they can be consciously analyzed. Duhigg reflected on when he was trying to change his eating habits. The habit he was trying to break was eating a cookie during lunch. Through altering his routine slightly, he was able to identify the trigger for his cookie craving: wanting social interaction and a distraction from work. The best replacement for the cookie turned out to be talking with friends at work.

Professor Andre White from the neuroscience department believes that this article, “suggests that habits develop slower than other forms of learning, such as learning names or locations. This slow learning often involves several brain regions that reward the successful completion of the habit.

“We can use these habits to support our success as well. Practicing presentations repeatedly in front of an audience (even friends) in the same room that you will give an important talk [in] can help reduce anxiety and form good habits. The environment will become associated with successfully completing the talk.”

Mount Holyoke Peer Health Educators support building good habits

BY LILY CAO ’21

On Oct. 29, Peer Health Educators Sophie Jacobs ’20, Alaina Lee ’21 and Viveca Holman ’22 put on the “What’s Your Vision?” workshop at Blanchard Community Center. The goal of this event was to help people realize the transformative power of atomic habits — small habits within a part of a larger system — and create new versions of themselves through “futureself journaling.”

This 90-minute workshop was split into three parts: introduction, self-reflection and vision board decoration. Event participants were first shown a short video called “Atomic Habits: How to Get 1% Better Every Day” by James Clear, an author and speaker who studies habits, decision-making and continuous improvement. Clear stressed the importance of changing habits as a way to change one’s internal being.

According to Clear, people think that great successes require great actions and therefore underestimate the significance of the cumulative power of small daily improvements.

“We gave everyone journals as tools for self reflection,” Jacobs said. “They can reflect on ways they can modify their behavior or environment to create better habits.”

The workshop concluded by decorating the journal’s front covers as a “vision board” to their new selves.

“I think people got in the flow when they were creating their journal covers and it was nice that they could leave with something tangible from the event,” Jacobs said. “Our goal for this activity was to have the cover as a reminder of their vision so it could feel like theirs.”

In coming months, the event organizers plan to send two follow-up emails to check in with how the participants are doing sticking to the tiny habits in their journals.

“Ideally, [we would love] our next workshop to be a discussion on how the journals have been useful and what habits they’ve been trying to stick to,” Jacobs said.