There is a Latin saying, which postulates that our habit is our second nature. Habits help us go through everyday routines without cluttering our mind. From shutting the front door to working out in a gym, we all have habits. On the other hand, we all also have memories. In theory, memories are supposed to make our life easier as well. Remembering how your friends look like or what the name of a book a professor mentioned was also seems rather helpful. A book by Charles Duhigg offers us an interesting insight into a life of a man, who could not form memories, but could develop habits. Th author states that “habits emerge without our permission” (Duhigg, 2012, p. 23). All the evidence explicitly proves his point.
Facts
First of all, habits and memory are two separate phenomena. This fact is even sometimes acknowledged in our language. There is no such an expression as “smoking memory”; it is a “smoking habit”. Habit is “the cognitive, neurological, and motivational changes that occur when behavior is repeated” (Wood & Tam, 2005, p. 918). Habits are formed on a biological level through repeated reactions. Thus, it is possible that even a person with a memory loss, as illustrated in the book by Charles Duhigg, can perform habitual actions. It can be so, as the described changes are not fully conscious. Moreover, they may be implemented without memory mechanisms being involved.
Another scientifically approved statement is that “strong habits are repeated relatively independently of intentions and personal norms” (Wood & Tam, 2005, p. 918). Thus, habits can be performed involuntary or unconsciously. We can even have a memory of this habit being not helpful in peculiar cases, but still follow it. We can find examples that prove this fact in our everyday life. For instance, a person has a touch phone. When the person is handed an old phone, which has buttons on it, the chances are that the person will first slide the screen with their fingers to unlock. Only afterward the person will realize how misguided they were by this simple habit. It made them slide the screen, though the buttons were right before their eyes. We do not “recognize these habit loops” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 26). The habitual action can be performed, though the triggers not to perform it (the buttons in this case) are present.
Argument
The mechanism of shaping a habit is different from the mechanism of shaping a memory. Forming reminiscence is a highly subjective process that depends on a myriad of factors, including our age, mood and perceptive skills. We may remember the song from a commercial we’ve seen once in our life, but don’t remember our credit card pin code, if we have not used it for some time period. On the other hand, habit developing process is comparatively standard and universal. It can be described as a three-step loop. The key components are a cue, a routine itself and some sort of reward. Cue is what triggers a certain behavior pattern, and if “there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional,” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 19) after which we get a satisfying or useful result, we can repeat the process until it becomes set. This way a habit is formed. The time of its development can still vary, depending on how precious the result is or how much effort does the routine require. However, if the repetitiveness does not depend on us, the habit is sure to occur even without our consent. For example, people who served in an army without a doubt develop a habit of making their bad after waking up etc.
Also, it is experimentally proven that habits are at times stronger than memories. Eugene from The Power of Habit could develop a new habit without being able to hold new memories for longer that about a minute. Let us address our everyday routines again. Everyone has turned back home to check if the front door was closed, and the chances are that was actually locked. As we see, we may follow our routine habits without acknowledging and forming a memory of it. As habits are shaped and function differently than memories do, they are also more flexible, as “[o]nce you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 19). You can consciously train yourself to acquire a habit, but you cannot make yourself develop a full-fledged memory of something that did not happen if your life. This also proves that habit loops are independent phenomena of a different strength.
Backing
Understanding that a habit can be made stronger than our memory and personal preferences may help us greatly in planning our lives. If some action undergoes “sufficient repetition in stable contexts, behavior comes to be triggered relatively automatically” (Wood & Tam, 2005, p. 932). Thus, if you want to dedicate yourself to getting in shape, make your diet and working out a repetitive routine. If you go to the gym once, you are more likely to “use the experiences of that behaviour in a decision concerning a similar opportunity to exercise on a next day” (Aarts et al., 1997, p. 365). Identifying the habit and acknowledging our ability to control it is the key. You may have memories of how delicious a pizza can be, or how exhausting a work out session is, but according to scientists, these memories can be outweighed by habitual patterns. The latter “can be ignored, changed, or replaced,” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 20) and realizing this fact may help you improve your health, academic achievements, time-management or any other kind of performance. We are able to control our habits if we learn to recognize them. The main means of control is repetitiveness and continuity of the process.
Counter-arguments
There may be some counter-arguments. Firstly, some may state that the study is not detailed enough. It seems that a book is based on not enough number of examples to advocate the independence of the habit so passionately. Moreover, the whole paradigm of our psychological knowledge is not full enough. We may still need a lot of time to make such a definite statement.
Another argument is that our memory’s role in forming habits is underrated. It would be logical if we first memorized a behavioral pattern, repeated it several times and only then it would become a habit. Without the first departure point, it should be impossible to begin the so-called habitual loop.
Rebuttal
The first argument can only derive from the lack of the field’s knowledge. An in-depth research was performed on a spectrum of live beings, from rats to humans. The investigations are of multiple directions: psychological, neurological, chemical, motor etc. Peculiar parts of our brain were detected, which are responsible for our memory or our habits. It was proved that functions of basal ganglia “involves participation in learning and memory processes,” (Packard & Knowlton, 2002, p. 584) meaning forming habits. Also, the hippocampus and the dorsal striatum, which “support fundamentally distinct forms of memory,” (Broadbent et al. 2007, p. 145) were elaborately tested. Having our brain studied to its smallest parts is what actually allowed to make the distinctions between these two mechanisms, revealing some habit procedures do not “have anything to do with [] conscious memory” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 12). The connections between these parts were also explored, as in the case of Eugene.
The abovementioned expression, “distinct forms of memory,” stands for declarative and habit memory. Thus, moving on to the second counter-argument, memory is not neglected during testing; actually it is studied more in depth when investigating habits. We can call the habit shaping mechanisms a “habit memory”. However, this kind of memory is qualitatively different from what we are used to. Thus, memory is not underrated, as long as we recognize two kinds of it: the declarative and the habit one. Moreover, “the two memory systems acquire information at different rates,” (Broadbent et al. 2007, p. 145) thus they can be absolutely independent. This is how Eugene from The Power of Habit “even with severe brain damage, could still use the cue-routine-reward loop” (Duhigg, 2014, p. 21). It took him more time than if he had not had the brain damage, but he proved it is possible for him to follow these peculiar associative patterns.
Conclusion
All in all, habit is a universal phenomenon that can be formed without engaging brain parts responsible for our memory. In the core of a habit lie “associations [that] guide habitual action so that it is triggered automatically by stable cues” (Wood & Tam, 2005, p. 918). We now operate extensive research, proof and precedents that allow to make such statements. However, for our convenience we may distinguish a separate kind of memory, calling it “habit memory”. Habits have their 3-step mechanism of shaping and largely rely on repetitiveness. They are an independent functional part of our behavior pattern as a whole. Though the topic is still to be researched, we can find proofs of habits’ exceptional power even in our everyday life. However, as Charles Duhigg says, “[h]abits aren’t destiny,” (2014, p. 20) and we are free to study and change them for our benefit. Acknowledging these evident differences between habits and memory may contribute positively to our lifestyle. We are to understand how full of habits our life is and what an important role they play. Habits are a limited, but still a portrait of our “self”. Or, as ancient Romans used to say, consuetudo est altera natura.
References
Aarts, H., Paulussen, Th., & Schaalma, H. (1997). “Physical Exercise Habit: on the Conceptualization and Formation of Habitual Health Behaviours. Health Education Research: Theory & Practice, 12(3): 363-374.
Broadbent, N. J., Squire, L. R., & Clark R. E. (2007). Rats Depend on Habit Memory for Discrimination Learning and Retention. Learning & Memory, 14: 145-151. doi:10.1101/lm.455607
Duhigg, Ch. (2014). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House.
Packard, M. G. & Knowlton, B. J. (2002). Learning and Memory Functions of the Basal Ganglia. Annu. Rev. Neurosci.,25: 563–93. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.25.112701.142937
Wood, W., Tam, L. (2005). Changing Circumstances, Disrupting Habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6): 918–933. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.918
