Routines are made up of a three-part "habit loop": a cue, a behavior and a reward. Understanding and interrupting that loop is key to breaking a habit, says journalist Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit."
"The biggest moment of flexibility in our shopping habits is when we have a child," says Duhigg , "because all of your old routines go out the window, and suddenly a marketer can come in and sell you new things."
Companies can also figure out how to get consumers to change their own habits and form new ones associated with their products or stores. The megastore Target, for example, tries to target pregnant women, says Duhigg, in order to capture their buying habits for the next few years.
"The biggest moment of flexibility in our shopping habits is when we have a child," he says, "because all of your old routines go out the window, and suddenly a marketer can come in and sell you new things."
Analysts at Target collect "terabytes of information" on its shoppers. They have figured out that women who buy certain products — vitamins, unscented lotions, washcloths — might be pregnant and then can use that information to jump-start their marketing campaign.
This can get tricky: One father was upset after receiving coupons for baby products in the mail from Target addressed to his teenage daughter.
"He went in and said, 'My daughter is 16 years old. Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?' and the manager apologizes," Duhigg says. "The manager calls a couple of days later ... and the father says, 'I need to apologize. ... I had a conversation with my daughter, and it turns out there's some things going on in my house that I wasn't aware of. She's due in August.' So Target figured it out before her dad did."
The nitty gritty:
"Neuroscientists have traced our habit-making behaviors to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which also plays a key role in the development of emotions, memories and pattern recognition. Decisions, meanwhile, are made in a different part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. But as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts. In fact, the brain starts working less and less," says Duhigg. "The brain can almost completely shut down. ..."
Bottom line - stay awake and make your decisions consciously!read the whole article here:
Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them
