thus, removes the cue-people can work for hours without thinking to check their in-boxes.)
Scientists have studied the brains of alcoholics, smokers, and overeaters and have measured how their neurology-the structures of their brains and the flow of neurochemicals inside their skulls-changes as their cravings became ingrained. Particularly strong habits, wrote two researchers at the University of Michigan, produce addiction-like reactions so that “wanting evolves into obsessive craving” that can force our brains into autopilot, “even in the face of strong disincentives, including loss of reputation, job, home, and family.” [56]
However, these cravings don’t have complete authority over us. As the next chapter explains, there are mechanisms that can help us ignore the temptations. But to overpower the habit, we must recognize which craving is driving the behavior. If we’re not conscious of the anticipation, then we’re like the shoppers who wander, as if drawn by an unseen force, into Cinnabon.
To understand the power of cravings in creating habits, consider how exercise habits emerge. In 2002 researchers at New Mexico State University wanted to understand why people habitually exercise. [57] They studied 266 individuals, most of whom worked out at least three times a week. What they found was that many of them had started running or lifting weights almost on a whim, or because they suddenly had free time or wanted to deal with unexpected stresses in their lives. However, the reason they
In one group, 92 percent of people said they habitually exercised because it made them “feel good”-they grew to expect and crave the endorphins and other neurochemicals a workout provided. In another group, 67 percent of people said that working out gave them a sense of “accomplishment”-they had come to crave a regular sense of triumph from tracking their performances, and that self-reward was enough to make the physical activity into a habit.
If you want to start running each morning, it’s essential that you choose a simple cue (like always lacing up your sneakers before breakfast or leaving your running clothes next to your bed) and a clear reward (such as a midday treat, a sense of accomplishment from recording your miles, or the endorphin rush you get from a jog). But countless studies have shown that a cue and a reward, on their own, aren’t enough for a new habit to last. Only when your brain starts
“Let me ask you about a problem I have,” I said to Wolfram Schultz, the neuroscientist, after he explained to me how craving emerges. “I have a two-year-old, and when I’m home feeding him dinner-chicken nuggets and stuff like that-I’ll reach over and eat one myself without thinking about it. It’s a habit. And now I’m gaining weight.”
“Everybody does that,” Schultz said. He has three children of his own, all adults now. When they were young, he would pick at their dinners unthinkingly. “In some ways,” he told me, “we’re like the monkeys. When we see the chicken or fries on the table, our brains begin anticipating that food, even if we’re not hungry. Our brains are craving them. Frankly, I don’t even
“I guess I should be thankful,” he said, “because the same process has let me create good habits. I work hard because I expect pride from a discovery. I exercise because I expect feeling good afterward. I just wish I could pick and choose better.”
IV.
After their disastrous interview with the cat woman, Drake Stimson’s team at P &G started looking outside the usual channels for help. They began reading up on experiments such as those conducted by Wolfram Schultz. They asked a Harvard Business School professor to conduct psychological tests of Febreze’s ad campaigns. They interviewed customer after customer, looking for something that would give them a clue how to make Febreze a regular part of consumers’ lives.
One day, they went to speak with a woman in a suburb near Scottsdale. She was in her forties with four kids. Her house was clean, but not compulsively tidy. To the surprise of the researchers, she loved Febreze.
“I use it every day,” she told them.
“You do?” Stimson said. The house didn’t seem like the kind of place with smelly problems. There weren’t any pets. No one smoked. “How? What smells are you trying to get rid of?”
“I don’t really use it for specific smells,” the woman said. “I mean, you know, I’ve got boys. They’re going through puberty, and if I don’t clean their rooms, it smells like a locker. But I don’t really use it that way. I use it for normal cleaning-a couple of sprays when I’m done in a room. It’s a nice way to make everything smell good as a final touch.”
They asked if they could watch her clean the house. In the bedroom, she made her bed, plumped the pillows, tightened the sheet’s corners, and then took a Febreze bottle and sprayed the smoothed comforter. In the living room, she vacuumed, picked up the kids’ shoes, straightened the coffee table, and sprayed Febreze on the freshly cleaned carpet. “It’s nice, you know?” she said. “Spraying feels like a little mini-celebration when I’m done with a room.” At the rate she was using Febreze, Stimson estimated, she would empty a bottle every two weeks.
P &G had collected thousands of hours of videotapes of people cleaning their homes over the years. When the researchers got back to Cincinnati, some of them spent an evening looking through the tapes. The next morning, one of the scientists asked the Febreze team to join him in the conference room. He cued up the tape of one woman-a twenty-six-year-old with three children-making a bed. She smoothed the sheets and adjusted a pillow. Then, she smiled and left the room.
“Did you see that?” the researcher asked excitedly.
He put on another clip. A younger, brunette woman spread out a colorful bedspread, straightened a pillow, and then smiled at her handiwork. “There it is again!” the researcher said. The next clip showed a woman in workout clothes tidying her kitchen and wiping the counter before easing into a relaxing stretch.
The researcher looked at his colleagues.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
“Each of them is doing something relaxing or happy when they finish cleaning,” he said. “We can build off that! What if Febreze was something that happened at the
Stimson’s team ran one more test. Previously, the product’s advertising had focused on eliminating bad smells. The company printed up new labels that showed open windows and gusts of fresh air. More perfume was added to the recipe, so that instead of merely neutralizing odors, Febreze had its own distinct scent. Television commercials were filmed of women spraying freshly made beds and spritzing just-laundered clothing. The tagline had been “Gets bad smells out of fabrics.” It was rewritten as “Cleans life’s smells.”
Each change was designed to appeal to a specific, daily cue: Cleaning a room. Making a bed. Vacuuming a rug. In each one, Febreze was positioned as the reward: the nice smell that occurs at the end of a cleaning routine. Most important, each ad was calibrated to elicit a craving: that things will smell as nice as they look when the cleaning ritual is done. The irony is that a product manufactured to destroy odors was transformed into the opposite. Instead of eliminating scents on dirty fabrics, it became an air freshener used as the finishing touch, once things are already clean.
When the researchers went back into consumers’ homes after the new ads aired and the redesigned bottles were given away, they found that some housewives in the test market had started expecting-craving-the Febreze scent. One woman said that when her bottle ran dry, she squirted diluted perfume on her laundry. “If I don’t smell something nice at the end, it doesn’t really seem clean now,” she told them.
