“Insanity: Doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Humans are strange. We’re creatures of habit. We do things because
they are familiar, comfortable, rewarding, and automatic even if they are harmful to our wellbeing.
It’s a tricky thing to detach from. Familiarity breeds liking, and liking creates biases
against anything falling outside of that category. So how to break habits that
are detrimental? Science is here to save everything.
Richard Larrick, in his paper on debiasing,
summarises a series of cognitive errors pertaining to either System 1 or 2, to
help explain why we repeat faulty behaviours that influence our beliefs.
For those not schooled in Kahneman, System 1 is the
emotional, instinctive mode of thought, while System 2 is the rational,
deliberative mode (which usually kicks in only when activated by System 1).
These systems have strong foundations in psychology and neuroscience.
Plus they sound like warring AI networks, which is cool.
Two of Larrick’s observations are rooted in System 1. Psychophysically-based
errors are errors of judgment and evaluation that are inconsistent over time,
which may make stimuli that change from one another appear similar.
It’s a similar concept to change blindness: in which we only
consider our initial judgements and ignore all other changes.
Association-based errors relate to memory retrieval, in
which new stimuli can trigger recall of associated stimuli and inhibit
unassociated stimuli. This often leads to recall of a narrow slice of an
otherwise bigger picture, which influences how we approach and respond to
problems.
Confirmation bias, anchoring, and hindsight bias are good
examples of association errors.
It’s interesting just how much dissonance influences our
beliefs. When we engage in faulty habits, we post-rationalise their benefits
and ignore all other factors, including how faulty they really are.
This keeps the habit going.
Let’s look now at the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team. Often, the best way to disengage from habits is to
encourage an alternative behaviour that a.)
offers an emotional reward, and b.)
can become habitual over time. The issue is how to encourage such a behaviour
in the first place.
We are unlikely to take up new behaviours unless they are
easy, attractive, social, and timely. The EAST model,
as it’s so aesthetically known, is an excellent behaviour change 101 document
and can work in tandem with other models such as BJ Fogg’s trigger matrix.
Of the four constructs, timeliness
is perhaps most glossed over when disrupting habits. As evidenced by a lot of
gambling intervention and anti-smoking campaigns, a well-timed intervention can
separate the gold from the mud.
The idea is to nudge people when they are at their most
receptive. This isn’t easy with deeply ingrained habits, as we tend to become
very guarded and defensive when we perceive such habits are threatened, but it
has been done through great advertising time and time again.
All it comes down to is identifying the biases that are
sustaining the habit, and applying a good behaviour change model to break or
replace it. Just make sure not to replace one faulty habit with another.
Or do, because they’re really the best kinds.
a.ce
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