We Are and Are Responsible For Our Habits

Attention, habit, and responsibility

The stranger’s awkwardness was palpable. As he struggled to make casual conversation, Sidney did everything she could not to glance over at Alexa. She could feel how hard Alexa was working not to laugh at this peculiar man. When he finally looked away for a moment, Sidney caught Alexa’s eye and the two acknowledged with restrained smiles the hilarity of the situation.

When do we know someone, like really know them?

I propose we really know someone when we can predict how they will react to something intellectually, emotionally, and behaviorally with a high degree of accuracy. You infer that Sidney and Alexa know each other well because their feelings are attuned and they are aware of this attunement. Sidney predicts Alexa’s response to the man with confidence. When the two exchange a look, they “see” each other’s reactions. They know each other well enough to accurately predict each other’s understanding of what’s going on.

Another way to put this basis for knowing a person is that we know someone when we know their habits. A habit is an intentionally or unintentionally practiced response (cognitive, affective, and/or behavioral) to a repeated interpretation of a stimulus that requires conscious mindful attention to inhibit in a situation and unlearn over time. Sidney accurately predicted what Alexa was thinking and feeling, as well as how Alexa would behaviorally respond to the encounter with the strange man after he exited the situation, because of her familiarity with Alexa’s habits of thought, feeling, and action.

We often discuss habits as possessable things. He “has” this habit, she “got rid of” that habit. Someone’s morally relevant habits comprise their character. That’s why we also talk about character and character traits as possessable things. One “is kind” – has the character trait of kindness, has a kind character – if they habitually respond to things in ways we would consider kind.

We also talk about skills as possessable things. Someone is skilled at something when they have cultivated habits relevant to performing an activity effectively (i.e., in a manner that usually effects or creates desirable results). My sister is an exceptionally skilled pianist because she has cultivated habits relevant to playing the piano. She doesn’t have to consciously attend to the keys to accurately predict which key should be hit next because the movements involved in playing songs are automatic for her. In fact, if she did consciously attend to the keys while she was playing, she wouldn’t be able to play songs she’s practiced as well. She wouldn’t be responding habitually/automatically, she would be “out of the zone” (out of the flow state).

There is a neuroscientific basis for this way of talking about habits. When we practice a response to something, we increase the probability that response will become automatic. Our nervous system is constantly trying to convert conscious nonhabitual reactions to unconscious habitual ones because conscious attention requires a lot of energy to apply and direct. Child and adolescent brains are more susceptible to habit formation than adult brains because they are more neuroplastic. This is why it is so important to cultivate good habits at a young age. It’s harder to cultivate and de-automatize habits as an adult because habits, by definition, have inertia.

To break bad habits – which are, by definition, addictions – we must either consciously, effortfully, mindfully “rewire” our brains (ourselves) to alter the meaning of the cues to which our bad habits are tied or remove those cues from our environments entirely. The meaning of a thing for you is its consciously or unconsciously understood implications for action, thought, and feeling (these are all always wrapped up in every response to a cue). The only difference between addictions and skills is our moral assessment of their constitutive habits. It takes skill to maintain a drug habit and even to do drugs in a pleasurable way (e.g., you must learn how to smoke weed effectively to get high).

Any response can become habitual. We can get addicted to or skilled at anything we respond to. Who we are, our character, our person, is our habits. We do what we do in a situation because of who we are in that situation. If we are responsible for who we are, and therefore what we do, we must be responsible for our habits.

Any habit can be discussed at a neurological level because all habits are neurological phenomena. We are bodies so everything we do, think, and feel has a bodily dimension. To describe the neurological or biological underpinnings of someone’s habit is not to exculpate that person of responsibility for that habit but to elaborate the bodily processes which constitute it. People are just as responsible for their drug addictions as their character because they are responsible for their habits, for who they are. (I’m not at all suggesting we shame drug addicts, but that we acknowledge their responsibility for themselves.)

Children form habits easier than adults, but, since they have less control over their environments, they have less responsibility for which habits they cultivate. While adults have a harder time forming habits, they have more control over their environments and therefore more responsibility for their habits. It’s not true that every response we initiate feeds into a new habit, but it is true that every response we initiate consciously increases the probability a habit will form as a result of that response. Where we direct our attention determines our future habits.

To better accomplish your goals, or to become more like the person you aspire to be, you should not dismiss anything you consciously attend to as irrelevant. There are no one-offs when it comes to focused activities. If people are to have control, and therefore responsibility, over anything at all, they must have control over where they apply their attention. Where we apply our conscious attention influences which responses we (i.e., our nervous systems) automatize.

The person you will become is created by the habits you form through your direction of your conscious attention. You are responsible for what you attend to and therefore for your habits, for who you are and who you are becoming.