The Same Process That Makes Aa So

The Biggest Moment Of Flexibility In Our Shopping Habits Is When We Have A Child, Because When You Think About It, All Of Your Old Routines Sort Of Go Out The Window, And Suddenly A Marketer Can Come In And Sell You New Kinds Of Things.

Shampoo Doesn’t Have To Foam, But We Add Foaming Chemicals Because People Expect It Each Time They Wash Their Hair. Same Thing With Laundry Detergent. And Toothpaste—now Every Company Adds Sodium Laureth Sulfate To Make Toothpaste Foam More. There’s No Cleaning Benefit, But People Feel Better When There’s A Bunch Of Suds Around Their Mouth. Once The Customer Starts Expecting That Foam, The Habit Starts Growing.

Habits Are Malleable Throughout Your Entire Life.

Habits, Scientists Say, Emerge Because The Brain Is Constantly Looking For Ways To Save Effort.

Then One Day, We’ll Put The Reward In The Old Place, And Put In The Rat, And, By Golloy, The Old Habit Will Rememerge Right Away. Habits Never Really Disappear. They’re Encoded Into The Sturctures Of Our Brain, And That’s A Huge Advantage For Us, Because It Would Be Awful If We Had To Relearn How To Drive After Every Vacation. The Problem Is That Your Brain Can’t Tell The Difference Between Bad And Good Habits, And So If You Have A Bad One, It’s Always Lurking There, Waiting For The Right Cues And Rewards.