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Habits: The Dirty Lowdown

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In order to create or change a habit, you have to retrain your brain. Your brain, however, actively resists your attempts to retrain it, viewing your interference as not only unwelcome but also potentially dangerous. Fortunately, as far as your brain is concerned, history indicates you’re not very adept at this retraining stuff. Plus you usually give up way too easily and quickly. So your brain doesn’t consider you much of an actual threat.

There’s something to be said for your brain’s point of view. But it’s not good news for you. Your habits can either provide the scaffolding that supports your endeavors or they can completely derail you. They affect every aspect of your life. If you want your life to be a consistently satisfying and meaningful one, you need to be able to reliably manage your habits.

Here are five facts to help you understand habits from your brain’s perspective.

1. Your Brain Has the “Habit” Habit.
  • It is primed to turn behaviors into habits, with or without your participation, in order to save energy. Habits make up the bulk of your behavior.
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  • Your brain does not share your opinions or judgments about whether your habits are good or bad. As far as your brain is concerned, any habit is a good habit.
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  • To succeed: Use your brain’s “habit” habit to your advantage instead of letting it run unfettered.
2. Habitual Behavior Is Unconscious.
  • Once a behavior becomes a habit, you no longer have conscious control over it.
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  • The fact that you understand the benefit of doing (or not doing) something has absolutely no impact on the part of your brain that runs your habits.
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  • To succeed: Communicate with your brain by your actions, not by your thoughts and good intentions. Your brain responds to repetition and persistence.
3. Your Brain Is Predictive Rather than Reactive.
  • Your brain is constantly trying to figure out what’s going on, what it means, and what you should do about it.
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  • By the time you’re aware you’re about to do something, you have less than two-tenths of a second to veto your brain’s directive.
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  • To succeed: Since your brain is always planning ahead, you have to plan ahead, too.
4. Habits are More than Behaviors.
  • Habits consist of three parts: a cue or trigger, a routine (the actual behavior), and a reward. This is known as the habit loop.
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  • Your brain is motivated to move you toward anything it finds rewarding.
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  • To succeed: Accept, understand, and use your brain’s reward system.
5. Your Brain Is Profoundly Averse to Change.
  • Your brain uses its considerable processing power and speed to maintain the status quo.
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  • To change the status quo, you must have a very compelling why (10 on a scale of 1-10).
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  • To succeed: Identify your desired outcome, not just your objective! (How is your status quo going to change once you successfully create or modify a particular habit?)

The good news is that once you’ve created a positive new habit or changed an existing negative one, your brain will dedicate itself to maintaining your new status quo just as zealously as it did the old one.

Your Brain Can Change Your Mind

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And Your Mind Can Change Your Brain.

More than 125 years ago, William James wrote in The Principles of Psychology that organic matter, especially nervous tissue, seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity. In regard to that insight—and too many others to recount—he was far ahead of his time. Thus he was more or less ignored. Until relatively recently, the accepted belief was that at a certain point the brain is finished developing (“cooked,” if you will). Thus the saying you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Now we know that isn’t true. The subject of plasticity has been getting more and more attention ever since it was discovered that the brain can change at any age—for better or for worse. In the normal course of events, changes in your brain are reflected in your behavior (mediated by your mental processes), and changes in your mental processes are reflected in your brain (mediated by your behavior).

There are two types of neuroplasticity, functional and structural. Functional plasticity is the brain’s ability to turn over a task from one area (that has been damaged) to another. Structural plasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt (change its physical structure) as a result of learning and experience.

Most of the changes that take place in your brain are outside your awareness and control, but in some cases you can encourage the process, resist it, or give it a good nudge. And your personality may play a role in the actions you take—or don’t take. Use it or lose it is a case in point.

Plasticity vs. Stability

Plasticity happens to be one of the two so-called meta-traits that subsume the five factors of the Five-Factor (OCEAN) personality model. The other meta-trait is stability. Plasticity and stability seem to be at opposite ends of a continuum, but when it comes to the capacity for sustained behavior change, the situation isn’t that black or white.

Plasticity

The functions of plasticity are exploration and the creation of new goals, interpretations, and strategies. The negative pole of plasticity is rigidity. Plasticity encompasses the factors of Openness to Experience (cognitive exploration and engagement with information) and Extraversion (behavioral exploration and engagement with specific rewards).

Each of the five factors has two aspects. You might have stronger tendencies for one aspect than for the other. In the case of Openness to Experience, the two aspects are:

  • Intellect: detection of logical or causal patterns in abstract and semantic information.
  • Openness: detection of spatial and temporal correlational patterns in sensory and perceptual information.

For Extraversion, the aspects are:

  • Assertiveness: incentive reward sensitivity and the drive toward goals.
  • Enthusiasm: consummatory reward sensitivity, and the enjoyment of actual or imagined goal attainment.
Stability

The functions of stability are protection of goals, interpretations, and strategies from disruption by impulses. The negative pole of stability is instability. Stability encompasses the factors of Conscientiousness (protection of non-immediate or abstract goals and strategies from disruption), Agreeableness (altruism and cooperation and coordination of goals, interpretations, and strategies with those of others), and Neuroticism (defensive responses to uncertainty, threat, and punishment).

The two aspects for Conscientiousness are:

  • Industriousness: prioritization of non-immediate goals.
  • Orderliness: avoidance of entropy by following rules set by self or others.

The two aspects for Agreeableness are:

  • Compassion: emotional attachment to and concern for others
  • Politeness: suppression and avoidance of aggressive or norm-violating impulses and strategies.

And the two aspects for Neuroticism are:

  • Volatility: active defense to avoid or eliminate threats.
  • Withdrawal: passive avoidance (inhibition of goals, interpretations, and strategies in response to uncertainty or error).
Preferences for Novelty or Conformity

Researchers suggest that the meta-trait plasticity reflects a tendency “to explore and engage flexibly with novelty, in both behavior and cognition,” while stability reflects a tendency “to maintain stability and avoid disruption in emotional, social, and motivational domains.”

People who are high in plasticity tend to be:

  • Higher in “externalizing behaviors”
  • Lower in conformity
  • Lower in morningness
  • Higher in divergent thinking

People who are high in stability also tend to be:

  • Lower in “externalizing behaviors”
  • Higher in conformity
  • Higher in morningness
  • Lower in divergent thinking

Although we all possess some degree of all five factors, considerable variation exists from one person to the next. The five factors, their aspects, and the numerous traits that go along with them all exist on a continuum. So even if two people had identical scores for, say, Conscientiousness, their scores for the aspects and traits could be different enough to lead to very dissimilar attitudes and behaviors.

If you haven’t taken the Five-Factor test yet, you can take it here.

And you can find lists of some of the traits associated with each of the five factors here.

Diving into the OCEAN
of Personality Traits

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While creating and sustaining positive behavior change isn’t easy for anyone, it seems to be harder for some people than for others. Identifying their Enneagram type helps my clients hone in on their strengths and weaknesses and develop an awareness of the kinds of roadblocks they’re likely to face in the work we do together. But it would be even more helpful to be able to determine at the outset how open someone really is to change. Simply asking the question, which seems like an obvious solution, isn’t the answer since the basis of many personality traits resides in the unconscious (therefore outside conscious awareness).

Well, it appears there actually is an instrument that offers some clues about a person’s receptivity to behavior change.

In the fledgling field of the neuroscience of personality, the system that has been given the most scrutiny is what is referred to as The Big Five or The Five-Factor model of personality—aka OCEAN. OCEAN is an acronym for the five factors the test measures, which are:

The Five-Factor model doesn’t account for all aspects of temperament or personality, but it’s quite comprehensive, and numerous longitudinal studies have confirmed its validity as well as its predictive ability. As a result of being the personality model most used by psychologists, it has been the target of research in areas such as creativity, leadership skills, and the use of technology and even social media. Researches are also working on correlating variation in the volume of different brain regions to the five factors.

[You can take the test here.]

Each of the five factors is divided into two aspects, which are further divided into facets (individual personality traits) that correlate to one or, in some cases, both aspects.

Openness to Experience

If you score high in Openness to Experience, you probably have a vivid imagination, like to try new things, love learning, enjoy the arts, and prefer variety over routine. Openness includes the aspects of intellect and openness. Some traits related to intellect and openness are:

  • Imagination
  • Insight
  • Originality
  • Creativity
  • Curiosity
  • Perception
  • Wide variety of interests
  • Quickness
  • Ingenuity
  • Excitement-seeking
  • Fantasy
  • Reflection
Conscientiousness

If you score high in conscientiousness, you’re probably able to delay gratification. It’s also likely you can plan and organize effectively, work within the rules, and tend not to procrastinate or be impulsive. Conscientiousness includes the aspects of industriousness and orderliness. Some traits related to industriousness and orderliness are:

  • Persistence
  • Puposefulness
  • Self-discipline
  • Perfectionism
  • Consistency
  • Predictability
  • Resourcefulness
  • Dutifulness
  • Deliberation
  • Efficiency
  • Competence
  • Planning
Extraversion

If you score high in extraversion, you are likely to seek opportunities for social interaction, are comfortable with others, enjoy being the center of attention, and prefer action to contemplation. However, what separates extraverts from introverts, brain-wise, is their responsiveness to rewards. Extraversion includes the aspects of enthusiasm and assertiveness. Some traits related to enthusiasm and assertiveness are:

  • Gregariousness
  • Confidence
  • Cheerfulness
  • Warmth
  • Sociability
  • Positive emotions
  • Leadership
  • Provocativeness
  • Friendliness
  • Talkativeness
  • Excitement-seeking
  • Poise
Agreeableness

If you score high in agreeableness, you’re probably respected and well-liked, are cooperative and sensitive to the needs of others, and generally get along with people. Agreeableness includes the aspects of compassion and politeness. Some traits related to compassion and politeness are:

  • Trust
  • Modesty
  • Humility
  • Patience
  • Empathy
  • Pleasantness
  • Moderation
  • Kindness
  • Loyalty
  • Cheerfulness
  • Cooperation
  • Consideration
Neuroticism

If you score high in neuroticism, you may lack self-confidence, cope poorly with stress, focus more on negative emotions than positive ones, and have a tendency to worry or ruminate about your experiences. Neuroticism includes the aspects of volatility and withdrawal. Some traits related to volatility and withdrawal are:

  • Pessimism
  • Moodiness
  • Immoderation
  • Anxiety
  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Timidity
  • Wariness
  • Insecurity
  • Self-consciousness
  • Instability
  • Over-sensitivity

How do you think high and low scores in the five-factor test might either support or impede behavior change? Within the five factor aspects (OCEAN), which individual traits do you think would exert the greatest effect on attempts at behavior change?

Next time, I’ll fill in another piece of the puzzle, one that is less widely known than the Big Five. It’s referred to as the Big (sometimes Huge) Two because its two factors are meta-factors that include the Big Five factors and provide us with that shortcut to determining an individual’s inherent capacity for succeeding with behavior change strategies.

Mind the Gap

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You experience the gap numerous times each day. Everyone does. The gap, in this case, is the discrepancy between what you expect will happen and what actually happens. Because your brain finds this gap to be very unsettling, it responds by rushing to close it (i.e., explain it) as quickly as possible. Ostensibly, the purpose of an explanation is to help you understand what’s happening—or give you the sense that you understand—so you can determine a course of action to take.

This is an automatic process that works reasonably well in a variety of situations, especially if they’re straightforward and/or familiar. Coming up with explanations is so automatic and so fast that you probably don’t stop very often to question the validity or accuracy of the expectations that gave rise to the gap that needs explaining.

But if your expectations are based on unfounded assumptions or an incorrect analysis of the situation—or if they are missing critical information—then your explanation is bound to be flawed. And it turns out that most such explanations are flawed.

In truth, when we set out to explain our actions, they are all post hoc explanations using post hoc observations with no access to unconscious processing. Not only that, our left brain fudges things a bit to fit into a makes-sense story. Explanations are all based on what makes it into our consciousness, but actions and the feelings happen before we are consciously aware of them—and most of them are the results of nonconscious processes, which will never make it into the explanations. The reality is that listening to people’s explanations of their actions is interesting—and in the case of politicians, entertaining—but often a waste of time. —Michael Gazzaniga, Professor of Psychology, UC Santa Barbara

You can’t avoid having expectations. If your brain wasn’t predictive, you wouldn’t be able to function in the world you find yourself in. But those predictions are based, to a great extent, on the mental model the unconscious part of your brain maintains of what’s normal for you. Naturally, you feel pretty confident about them. But the degree of confidence you have in your explanations is not a reliable guide to their validity or accuracy.

When the gap is generated by a flawed explanation based on unfounded expectations, the action you take to correct or respond to it won’t get you the result you want. Instead you will be faced with yet another gap to explain and contend with. Continuing down this winding road can take you very far afield from your original destination.

As a result, the conscious part of your brain (the part you think of as “I”) may become more and more dissatisfied, frustrated, and even confused. You may give up or at least feel like giving up. The unconscious part of your brain, on the other hand, is likely to be quite satisfied with this state of affairs.

We have a big brain capable of greatness with hardwiring for survival. –David DiSalvo

The unconscious part of your brain is, as Cormac McCarthy put it, “a machine for operating an animal.” This particular machine’s prime directive is survival, and it thinks the best way for you to survive is to maintain your status quo. It has a variety of tricks up its sleeve to deceive you into thinking you’re moving forward when, in fact, you’re expending a lot of mental energy running in place on the hamster wheel.

The Myth of Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotage is a great example of an explanation created to account for the gap between the expectation that our behavior ought to be based on our conscious intentions and the experience of doing something other than what we consciously intend to do. If you accept the self-sabotage explanation, the logical action to take is to try to determine how and why you’re sabotaging yourself. This is a diversionary expedition that leads to a dead end. It contributes nothing in the way of helping you change your behavior.

The expectation that our behavior ought to be based on our conscious intentions is based on several unwarranted assumptions. The reality is that since we operate on autopilot most of the time, most of our behavior is generated by unconscious impulses, not by conscious intentions. And the unconscious part of our brain wants to maintain the status quo. You’re far more likely to keep doing what you’ve been doing than you are to do something different.

You may not like it, but the fact that you don’t always do what you consciously intend to do should not surprise or confound you. The logical action to take (instead of trying to figure out how and why you’re sabotaging yourself) is to retrain your brain to make the desirable behavior part of the status quo.

When you follow the path of least resistance by unquestioningly going along with your brain’s interpretation of events and behaviors, you end up digging yourself deeper into your rut. If you want to expand your mental model, change your direction, and give yourself more opportunities to succeed, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to develop the habit of questioning your expectations.

Elementary, My Dear Watson*

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When you’re trying to solve a complex problem, determine a course of action, or evaluate others’ conclusions, you’ll need to engage logical System 2 reasoning, which is the opposite of System 1’s quick assessments.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty. —Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four

It can be helpful to understand different types of reasoning, be able to identify the type—or types—of reasoning that are being applied in a given situation, and know how accurate each type is likely to be.

But recognizing and/or applying a reasoning process to your problem or evaluation process isn’t enough to guarantee that the outcome of that reasoning process will be sound or accurate. Skillful reasoning doesn’t compensate for faulty premises or missing or biased information.

The following descriptions (but not the examples) of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning were provided by Alina Bradford, writing in Live Science (livescience.com).

Deductive reasoning: conclusion guaranteed

Deductive reasoning is a basic form of valid reasoning. Deductive reasoning, or deduction, starts out with a general statement, or hypothesis, and examines the possibilities  to reach a specific, logical conclusion, according to the University of California. The scientific method uses deduction to test hypotheses and theories. “In deductive inference, we hold a theory and based on it we make a prediction of its consequences. That is, we predict what the observations should be if the theory were correct.  We go from the general—the theory—to the specific—the observations,” said Dr. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, a researcher and professor emerita at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

In deductive reasoning, if something is true of a class of things in general, it is also true for all members of that class. For example, “All men are mortal. Harold is a man. Therefore, Harold is mortal.” For deductive reasoning to be sound, the hypothesis must be correct. It is assumed that the premises, “All men are mortal” and “Harold is a man” are true. Therefore, the conclusion is logical and true.

Examples:

  • It is dangerous to drive on icy streets. The streets are icy now so it is dangerous to drive now.
  • All birds have feathers and robins are birds, so robins have feathers.
  • Elephants have cells in their bodies and all cells have DNA, so elephants have DNA.

[Caveat: Deductive inference conclusions are certain provided the premises are true. It’s possible to come to a logical conclusion even if the generalization is not true. If the generalization is wrong, the conclusion may be logical, but it may also be untrue. For example, the argument, “All bald men are grandfathers. Harold is bald. Therefore, Harold is a grandfather,” is valid logically but it is untrue because the original statement is false.]

Inductive reasoning: conclusion merely likely

Inductive reasoning is the opposite of deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning makes broad generalizations from specific observations. “In inductive inference, we go from the specific to the general. We make many observations, discern a pattern, make a generalization, and infer an explanation or a theory,” Wassertheil-Smoller told Live Science. “In science there is a constant interplay between inductive inference (based on observations) and deductive inference (based on theory), until we get closer and closer to the ‘truth,’ which we can only approach but not ascertain with complete certainty.”

Even if all of the premises are true in a statement, inductive reasoning allows for the conclusion to be false. Here’s an example: “Harold is a grandfather. Harold is bald. Therefore, all grandfathers are bald.” The conclusion does not follow logically from the statements.

Examples:

  • John is a financial analyst. Individuals with professions in finance are very serious people. John is a very serious person.
  • Jennifer leaves for school at 7:00 a.m. and is on time. Jennifer assumes, then, that she will always be on time if she leaves at 7:00 a.m.
  • The water at the beach has always been about 75 degrees in July. It is July. The water will be about 75 degrees.
Abductive reasoning: taking your best shot

Another form of scientific reasoning that doesn’t fit in with inductive or deductive reasoning is abductive. Abductive reasoning usually starts with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the group of observations (Critical Thinking Skills, Butte College). It is based on making and testing hypotheses using the best information available. It often entails making an educated guess after observing a phenomenon for which there is no clear explanation.

Abductive reasoning is useful for forming hypotheses to be tested. Abductive reasoning is often used by doctors who make a diagnosis based on test results and by jurors who make decisions based on the evidence presented to them.

Examples:

  • Given a particular set of symptoms, a medical doctor needs to determine the diagnosis that would best explain most of them.
  • Jurors have to decide whether the prosecution or the defense has the best explanation to cover all the points of evidence although additional evidence may exist that was not admitted in the case.

While using one of these three types of reasoning is a function of System 2 (conscious) cognition, evaluating them—and their results—is an example of metacognition, which is a higher order of System 2 cognition. Metacognition is a skill you can develop to help you think smarter and improve outcomes in all areas of your life.

I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? —Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four

*This quintessential Sherlock Holmes quote was never actually uttered in any of Conan Doyle’s stories about him.

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