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Habits In Teams
Creatures of habit
Psychology has a long past, but only a short history. It emerged from two other disciplines, physiology and philosophy, because scientists in the early twentieth century insisted it should be a separate discipline, more empirical than philosophy and more focused on the mind than physiology.
William James (with William Wundt) are widely considered to be the fathers of modern psychology. In his seminal work, The Principles of Psychology (1890), James said, “When we look at creatures from an outward point of view, one of the first things that strikes us is that they are bundles of habits.”
As the saying goes, we are creatures of habit—good and bad.
The field of psychology has also received increasing attention from neuroscientists. In the last 30 years, both behavioural and cognitive psychology have been increasingly informed by advances in brain science, and neuroscientists are now insisting that earlier works of William James, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and others are due for a comeback and must be revisited. Terms like, neural activity in cortical areas, abnormal neural responses, brain fMRI reactivity, posterior dorsolateral striatum, and most importantly, the basil ganglia are now dominant in the study of human behaviour.
This leads us to the raging debate that the study of habits should be much deeper than simply habits, but rather the study of human behaviour. Only by widening the field of study will we be able to identify patterns of behaviour not only in individuals but also in teams, organizations, communities, and even societies.
Habits and individuals
In his book “The Power of Habit (2012),” Charles Duhigg popularized the idea of the habit loop as we know it today. Duhigg described the habit loop as consisting of three components: cue, routine, and reward. This framing helped to simplify and communicate the process of habit formation to a broader audience:
- Cue: A trigger that initiates the habit.
- Routine: the behaviour or action that follows the cue.
- Reward: The benefit or payoff from completing the routine, which reinforces the habit.
