Habit Formation and Control

To many people, the word “habit” has an unpleasant ring. It more often seems to signify injurious behavior than useful behavior. Most of us are more concern in the elimination of a bad habit than we are formation of a good habits. There are several psychologically valid rules for breaking involuntary habits and establishing new ones. They are all based on the laws and principles of learning.

However, the particular rules of successful habit forming differ in detail from the rules for memorizing because the muscles of the body play a larger role in habit forming than they do in the other forms of remembering.

Make an old involuntary habit voluntary. Deliberate exercise of a bad habit can give you control over undesirable response, so that you can inhibit it at will. Typists, for example, often correct the bad habits of typing “hte” for the by conciously practicing “hte.”

Substitute a new response to the old one. The best way to overcome a bad habit is to replace it by a good one. A new response must be associated with a given stimulus by reconditioning. Smokers often replace the response chain of “take, light, and smoke cigarette” by “take, unwrap, and chew gum.”

Start new the new habit with all possible initiative.  Commit yourself publicly to your new course, so that fear of ridicule will strengthen your incentive.

Permit no return to the old habit.

Exercise the new habit voluntarily as often as possible. Repitition provides a regular reinforcement. Unreinforced habits tend to become extinct.

There are some exceptions, however, to the old adage that says “practice makes perfect.” Mechanical repitition may make “learner go stale”- that is, lose motivation. Also, rest periods may enable the learner to return to his tasks with renewed zest.