The Authentic Eclectic
The Friction Factor
Context Cues and Friction — Two Vital Behaviours You’ve Never Heard Of
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Context cues and friction, coupled with initial immediate rewards, are vital in turning behaviours into automatic responses.
Can you really teach an old dog new tricks? Have you ever struggled to make a genuinely positive change to your habits and behaviours? You might be surprised to find that before you even begin, it’s helpful to rethink your planned approach.
In 2020, I decided to stop wasting so many precious hours staring slackly at TV shows and movies on a seemingly endless loop, and use some of that time instead for exercise and writing. It’s not that hard to turn the TV off, after all.
Or is it?
When my determination to change my TV watching habits yielded no results, I did a little digging on the subject. And what I’ve discovered has changed my whole method. Not only have I formed some great new habits, I no longer waste time trying to employ willpower and self-control because I’ve discovered, thanks to the experts, that’s not what’s needed.
I now know that context cues and friction, coupled with initial immediate rewards, are vital in turning behaviours into automatic responses.
I set out to change a habit, and found a whole new approach.
21 Days — The Mythology
There’s a common myth that it takes 21 days to form new habits. Many have given up in despair after 21 days of enforced routine didn’t yield the progress they hoped for. It turns out the whole notion is a misinterpretation of a phrase from a book by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz. Back in the 60s, his book Psycho-cybernetics was considered to be ground-breaking. Dr Maltz commented that after surgery, it took time for his patients to adjust to their bodily changes. “It requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve.”
A minimum of 21 days: and with so many variables between individuals, abilities and resources, even that time frame isn’t set in stone.
Changing the leopard’s spots
I’ve certainly been jealous of the apparent willpower of people who show persistence in habits that help them reach their goals. Yet it’s likely their success had little to do with willpower, and everything to do with how habits are actually formed, plus the adding or removing of friction.
Once a habit is formed, good or bad, it’s automatic, and difficult to shift.
According to David Neal Ph.D, a behavioural psychologist who’s been published extensively in his field, around “ 45% of what people do they do daily and in the same environment; i.e., it’s habitual.”
You see, over time habits are activated automatically by context cues. Provide the right cues in your environment and you will find yourself performing the same routine, no motivation or active self-control required. And though we usually form habits based on rewards, once firmly established they will persist even if you remove that reward.
In the scholarly article “ The Pull of the Past” there’s discussion of a fascinating popcorn study. The study found that people who already had the ingrained habit of eating popcorn under certain circumstances would keep eating it, even if it now tasted awful and even if they weren’t hungry. In the study, people who had already formed the popcorn eating habit continued stuffing stale, unpalatable popcorn into their mouths when placed in the environment they’d come to associate with eating it. The reward had vanished, but the context cues triggered the routine anyway.
If you modify the environment to include the necessary context cues, the habit you’ve already formed will automatically follow.
Once I knew this, I thought great! That simplifies matters. But how do I form the habit in the first place? 21 days in a row of forcing myself to make my bed, in a vain effort to feel more productive and organised, just left me wishing someone would invent a bed-making robot. I had made the mistake of thinking the long term gain of satisfaction, tidiness and feeling more orderly would be sufficient.
But it’s important to know that we’re not wired for long term rewards. Human brains seek instant gratification. So whatever the reward is, ensuring that it is immediate will help your brain to link that reward to the habit you want to cultivate. Now, it doesn’t have to be a substantial reward. Your favourite song. A lovely smell. A square or two of chocolate. The chemicals produced in relaxation or pleasure are enough for the brain to want to repeat the activity.
But there’s more.
One of my favourite resources is The Psychology PodCast by Scott Barry Kaufman. I hunted through his archives for anything helpful on changing habits, and discovered his interview with Wendy Wood on how to build self-reinforcing habits by use of friction.
The Friction Factor
Why, despite my best efforts, was I watching one show after another in a streaming binge-fest? Because those who design the streaming sites have intentionally constructed it that way. By auto-starting each following episode they encourage us to vegetate on the couch. By simply removing the tiny bit of friction in making the conscious choice to press play for the next episode, they reinforce vacant, mindless binge-watching.
Wendy Wood, professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, explains that willpower is overrated. In Wood’s book “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick” she says “conscious willpower is not the driving force behind sustained behavior change”.
One example she gives involves research using the data from thousands of mobile phones. The data showed that if people had to travel up to 3.7 miles to the gym, they’d go on average 5 times a month. However, by adding the friction of just 1.4 extra miles to that trip, by making it 5.1 miles instead of 3.7 miles, that attendance rate dropped to 1 visit per month.
You do not need much friction to prevent or encourage a habit.
So conscious choice might get you started on your new routine, and linking the habit with a reward will encourage you to continue it. But one key factor in keeping up your resolve is to either increase or decrease the friction around the activity.
Putting my remote down wasn’t as easy as just practising self-discipline, because I’d already reinforced the habit of binge-watching. For me, the context cues were to sit down in my favourite electric recliner at a certain time of day, place my laptop on my knees and make myself comfortable. And suddenly I’d find myself turning on a streaming service without any conscious thought. My brain had been receiving the reward of chemicals produced by relaxation and enjoyment at that time of the day and in that environment, for some time. Months later I was growing bored and restless and I was no longer truly enjoying the binge-watching, but the habit was entrenched, and persisted.
I’d grab the remote on auto-pilot, and before I knew it, 2 precious hours had passed. I’d use my willpower and turn the TV off, only to turn it back on again, barely realizing it. For weeks I tried to rally my self-discipline. My frustration at what I thought of as my lack of willpower was discouraging me from trying to make other healthy changes to my routines. If I couldn’t even turn the TV off and keep it off, what would be the point in something harder?
“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”
After listening to the friction discussion, and doing some research, I started approaching the problem differently. I changed just one thing.
I started moving the TV remote control to the other room before sitting down with my laptop.
At first, I would find my hand restlessly reaching for and searching for the remote. If it had been within reach, I’d have automatically hit the on button. By introducing the friction of making the decision a conscious one, I stopped binge-watching, and that change was pretty much immediate. Now, if I want to binge-watch I have to choose to do so.
The same works for mobile phones, or other devices. Spending too much time scrolling? Put your phone in the other room. Want to spend less time on Twitter? Delete the Twitter app, and don’t enable automatic logging in. In the few seconds it takes to find the page on your search engine and type in your password, you have the opportunity to make a conscious decision about whether to log in or not. And that makes it so much easier to control.
Make it harder and less convenient to indulge in bad habits. And make it easier to indulge in good ones. Just add, or remove friction.
Drunk on the power of my newfound freedom from TV, I started applying friction plus rewards to other endeavours. I wanted to work out more on the treadmill, but I really hate removing or replacing the dust cover, it’s fiddly and takes a few minutes. So I stopped doing that. Now, I just drape the cover over the belt area and call it good. I’ve used the treadmill every day now for the last three weeks, my longest streak ever.
Ironically, I’ve maintained the habit for around 21 days.
Old Habits Die Easily
I no longer feel that weary apprehension at the thought of trying to form better habits. It’s no longer such a chore. Once I’ve made the conscious decision to remove or add a habit from my life I know how to trick myself into doing it.
Figure out my immediate simple reward. Remove any possible friction to encourage a new habit, or add friction to discourage an old one. Combine these two factors daily, and over time the habit will become automatic, so when my environment provides the same context cues, I’ll get the same result.
And what about my beloved shows? I still really want to find out what my favourite characters are getting up to. So I’ve amalgamated walking on the treadmill with watching streaming services, much like Wendy Wood did with her elliptical machine. An added benefit is that I find myself walking for longer than I used to. Boredom was the main area of friction in that case, and I’ve eliminated it.
By simply removing or adding friction in a few areas, I’ve added positive, healthy habits to my life. I’ve reclaimed some squandered time and increased my fitness levels too.
The Beat Of Your Own Drum
And I’d like to share one last tip toward helping you to create healthy habits. If, like me, you find music enhances, improves or alters your mood quite significantly, it’s worth taking the time to organise a playlist for certain activities in advance of those activities.
Your playlist should include at least 10–20 songs, so you don’t become bored with the selection over time, and I always hit shuffle at the start of the selection, for the same reason.
Most importantly, I’ve chosen the songs on my playlist The Gratitude Jar very carefully. I have other playlists of songs I enjoy, but The Gratitude Jar is exclusively comprised of songs that I think of as driving songs. The only music allowed on that list is that which immediately lifts me, gives me a boost and makes me feel noticeably positive. The Gratitude Jar is specifically created to lift to motivate me, and the reward is the pleasure of an immediate mood lift.
Now that I’ve discovered it, I can’t stop telling everyone else about friction and habit forming. Like other brilliant concepts, it seems so simple now the experts have explained it to me.
I might never learn to love making the bed, but I bet I can simplify it so there’s less friction. Perhaps I’ll swap the quilt, quilt cover and bedspread combo for a simple comforter. Maybe I’ll ditch some of the time-consuming and unnecessarily complicated pillow arrangements. And I’ll definitely start listening to The Gratitude Jar while I’m tidying the bedroom.
So if you find me shimmying around the bedroom grooving to Pink the next time you visit, don’t be surprised.
It’s all part of my new conviction about the power of applying friction.
“Fail to plan, plan to fail” [Benjamin Franklin]
Copyright Alison Tennent 2021, all rights reserved. Scottish by birth, upbringing, and bloodline, Australian by citizenship. If you’re reading this anywhere but Vocal+, this work may have been plagiarized.
Sources:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/155981.Psycho_Cybernetics_A_New_Way_to_Get_More_Living_Out_of_Life
https://behavioralpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BSP_vol1is1_Wood.pdf
https://syntheticzero.net/2014/02/27/creatures-of-habit-david-neal-on-autonomy/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51588652_The_Pull_of_the_Past_When_Do_Habits_Persist_Despite_Conflict_With_Motives
https://www.domain.com.au/living/six-reasons-to-make-your-bed-every-morning-20150910-gjj4z7/
https://www.healthline.com/health/happy-hormone
https://scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43565368-good-habits-bad-habits#:~:text=by%20Wendy%20Wood-,Good%20Habits%2C%20Bad%20Habits%3A%20The%20Science%20of,Making%20Positive%20Changes%20That%20Stick&text=to%20the%20people-,We%20spend%20a%20shocking%2043%20percent%20of%20our%20day%20doing,to%20act%20along%20learned%20behaviors.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-close-do-you-need-to-be-to-your-gym-1490111186
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/great-oaks-from-little-acorns-grow#:~:text=Henry%20Ford%20did%20not%20start,oaks%20from%20tiny%20acorns%20grow.
Originally published at https://vocal.media.
