Author: Robby Berman / Source: Big Think
- A new study suggests repetition is the key to developing a new habit.
- The study bases its conclusions on the habits of digital rodents.
- Just keep at it — go to the gym, floss — and the desired habit will eventually stick.
A paper, “Habits Without Values,” recently published in Psychological Review suggests that forming habits is a matter of simply repeating the desired behavior until it sticks, not matter how little pleasure you derive from it.
This conclusion comes from observing the habit-forming process of what the study refers to as “digital rodents” — computer models of mice — in a simulated environment of the authors’ design.New support for the neural pathway idea?
This finding fits in with earlier studies that determined habits form when a neural pathway activated by some action you’ve taken becomes reinforced through repetition. It’s why we often find ourselves making the same bad choice over and over: We’re not really choosing at all, but just traveling automatically down a familiar default behavioral pathway, as Gretchen Rubin explains in her book Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives.
On the other hand, another approach
Not everyone is likely to agree with the new research’s conclusion. Some, including Charles Duhigg, advocate a reward system to help you stick to and learn a new habit you…
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