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BOOK REVIEW
Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Doin Life and Business
Random House, New York, 2012, 371 pp
S. E. James
Published online: 14 August 2012
� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Charles Duhigg has written an intelligent and fascinating
book that is sure to peak the interest of anyone who has
ever had a bad habit. The Power of Habit: Why We Do
What We Do In Life and Business goes far beyond how
habits affect us in our personal lives and provides insight
into how individuals and companies as diverse as sports
figures to corporations succeed or fail, based on nothing
more than habits.
The book contains nine chapters, divided into three
parts. Part 1 looks at the habits of individuals, Part 2 at the
habits of successful organizations and Part 3 at the habits of
societies. The appendix is a helpful guide to using the ideas
presented in the book.
Chapter 1 focuses on the story of a man named Eugene
who was stricken with viral encephalitis and the extensive
work of a memory scientist, Larry Squire, whose research
included understanding the subconscious mechanisms that
impact our many choices each day, choices that seem to be
the product of thoughts but are actually influenced by urges
that we don’t even recognize. Squire had been fortunate
enough to work with a group of doctors that studied Henry
Molaison, perhaps one of the most famous patients in
medical history. H. M., as he was known throughout his
life, had suffered from seizure disorders since the age of
seven, and in desperation had agreed to brain surgery in
1953 at the age of 27. From then until his death in 2008,
H. M. had no memory of anything that occurred after the
surgery, but retained the memories from before the surgery.
Squire’s studies of Eugene showed similarities to H. M.’s
case, and he began conducting experiments focused on the
formation of patterns within the deepest parts of the brain,
including the basal ganglia. Internalizing patterns and
acting on them, it seems, comes from the part of the brain
that requires very little intelligent thought. Actions that we
perform ‘‘without even thinking’’ about them, from as
simple as brushing our teeth to as complex as backing out
of the driveway and entering the flow of traffic become
routine thanks to our basal ganglia. Scientists say that this
is because the brain is constantly searching for pathways of
least resistance. This is the nature of the habit loop, a three-
step loop consisting of a trigger, a routine, and a reward.
When habits emerge, our brains actually stop participating
in decision-making. Scary thought, isn’t it? This explains
why we develop the habit of opening the freezer and
reaching for the carton of ice cream after dinner, and before
we know it, we are doing it every night despite our
increasing weight. Experiments on rats have shown that
when habits have been intentionally instilled by using cues
and rewards, the rats will continue to eat food that has been
poisoned. They just can’t stop themselves.
After reading this chapter, I was very intrigued with the
concept of the habit loop and the possibility of creating
new habits, which is addressed in Chapter 2. Beginning
with the story of Claude C. Hopkins, a successful adver-
tising executive, and ending with the remarkable story of
Febreze, this chapter delves deeper into the habit loop to
explore how new behaviors are created within a customer
base. Hopkins’ success in the early 1900s in convincing
consumers to purchase oatmeal, tires, toothpaste, carpet
sweepers and the lowly can of pork and beans hinged on
creating a craving which fuels the habit loop. He was an
expert at creating triggers that would justify the product’s
use. For example, when very few Americans were brushing
their teeth (around the time of World War I), Hopkins took
on the challenge of creating advertising for Pepsodent. His
S. E. James (&)
A Perfect Balance, 14 Atkinson Avenue, Savannah
GA 31404, USA
e-mail: sandi.james@comcast.net
123
J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:582–584
DOI 10.1007/s10826-012-9645-6
tactics included identifying a cue—running the tongue over
the teeth to feel a ‘‘film’’—and promising a reward—
remove the film and have a dazzling smile. Soon people
began to crave the feeling of having freshly cleaned teeth
without the ‘‘dinghy’’ layer of film and Pepsodent became a
household name. In the same way, once advertising exec-
utives began marketing Febreze, the odor eliminator, as a
‘‘fresh scent’’ being the finishing touch to a clean house,
sales increased. Without the scent, the house somehow
didn’t seem as clean, and housework wasn’t as enjoyable
without the reward Febreze provided.
In Chapter 3, Duhigg explains the inner workings of the
brain when anticipating a reward. There are neurological
changes in the brain throughout the stages of the habit loop
that are so powerful that unsatisfied cravings caused anger
and depression among test subjects. Duhigg effectively
weaves the science of habits with the stories of everyday
products in a way that can easily be understood.
Chapter 4 effectively presents two parallel stories, the
career of Tony Dungy and the principles of 12-step groups.
I was familiar with AA but I am not a sports fan, and had
never heard of Tony Dungy. I was reading this book aloud
to my husband, sister, and teenaged nephews and niece as
we made our way north from Georgia to Maryland (an 11-h
drive). My husband likes me to read to him while he drives
and I prefer to read than drive so it’s a match made in
heaven. My sister is an elementary school teacher and the
teenagers are, well, teenagers, and everyone knew who
Tony Dungy was except me! For those of you who are as
uninformed as I was, Tony Dungy is a former football
coach best known for coaching the Indianapolis Colts from
2002 to 2008, and leading them to a Super Bowl by
defeating the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. He also is
a respected lecturer on the motivation circuit. Dungy’s
philosophy of coaching was that by instilling the correct
habits in his players, they would begin to react automati-
cally, be faster, and win. Using the same cue, providing the
same reward, and changing the routine is the ‘‘golden rule’’
of habit change. These same ideas are behind one of the
largest, wide-scale, habit change based organization’s
success—Alcoholics Anonymous.
Alcoholism is an addiction, not a habit, and it has not
only physical but psychological and genetic roots, but AA
and related programs do not ‘‘cure’’ the addiction, rather
they address the habits around the use of alcohol and other
addictive substances and behaviors. Just as Tony Dungy’s
coaching focused on cues and rewards, AA recognizes the
triggers and payoffs that are associated with addictive
behaviors and replaces the old routines with new, positive
ones. In addition to this, both Dungy and AA realize the
need for individuals and/or groups to have a belief that
change is possible. The chapter concludes with a great lead
into the next part of the book by presenting the evidence
that success in changing is easier when a group is com-
mitted to change.
Part 2 begins with a chapter on which habits matter
most. These are known as keystone habits. The organiza-
tion that Duhigg uses as an example of this is Alcoa, the
Aluminum Company of America. He interposes Alcoa’s
story with the tale of Michael Phelps, an Olympic swim-
mer. When Paul O’Neill took the helm of Alcoa in 1987,
the company was floundering. Investors were dismayed
when O’Neill addressed safety as the top priority of the
company, instead of profits and costs. The method to
O’Neill’s seeming madness was to attack one habit that
applied to everyone in the business—a keystone habit—
and eventually, other changes would follow. Small wins
can cause widespread shifts within a company or within an
individual’s life. In my own experience, a small ‘‘win’’,
cultivating a daily habit of meditation, started a chain
reaction that eventually led to better eating and sleeping
habits, and a new found commitment to my business
endeavors.
Within Alcoa, the death of a factory worker spurred
O’Neill to call an emergency meeting and ultimately take
personal responsibility for the accident, demonstrating his
commitment to a safety policy which included instituting an
open door policy for any employee, regardless of status, to
call him on his personal line anytime safety issues were
identified. In addition, O’Neill developed a way to relay
safety reports in real time, using a network of computers and
becoming one of the first worldwide corporate email sys-
tems. When a top executive failed to report safety issues that
led to several illnesses, he was immediately fired, sending the
message within the company that no matter the level of one’s
position, lack of integrity would not be tolerated. Focusing
on one keystone habit—safety—ultimately led to a shift in
the company’s culture where new values became engrained.
This chapter also chronicles Michael Phelps’ success,
focusing on his coach’s philosophy of instilling the habit of
mentally playing a videotape of successful races prior to each
event.
Chapter 5 is all about coffee and willpower, Starbucks
and success. It was interesting to read about how Starbucks
has become successful due in large part to their excellent
training in customer service. Apparently this corporation
saw a great need in training employees to react appropri-
ately to inflections, or points of pressure in which an
employee may respond to a customer or coworker inap-
propriately due to a lack of alternative responses. To pre-
vent this from happening, Starbucks produced a workbook,
which outlined plans for each and every scenario that might
occur in the workplace. These scenarios are role played
until the employee develops the habit of applying the
routine without having to think about it. Since reading this
book, I have become more aware of the customer service
J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:582–584 583
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that I receive at Starbucks! The chapter also discusses how
developing the habit of writing down goals on a daily basis
increases the possibility of meeting those goals. Again,
Duhigg does an excellent job in presenting the information
and in bringing the two stories together.
The power of crisis is addressed in Chapter 6. This
chapter reveals the life threatening problems that can arise
in organizations that have developed bad habits by using
two real life examples, a hospital where doctors were
making significant errors in the operating room due to a
hostile work environment where hospital staff looked the
other way, and the London Underground’s lack of unified
safety policies, which led to 31 deaths in a 1987 fire. These
stories show that a company’s culture and habits can create
a dysfunctional and dangerous work environment that
seems ‘‘normal’’ from the outside and even to the indi-
viduals within the company.
Chapter 7 is an interesting look into how statisticians are
used to predict and manipulate the habits of customers,
using Target’s data driven marketing as an example. Did
you ever wonder how you end up getting certain coupons
from a store, either in a mailing or from the receipts that
the cash register prints? Target links each purchase to
individualized demographic profiles in order to mathe-
matically mind read without the customers’ awareness.
General analysis of purchasing habits aids in product
placement, advertising, and discounts, but stores such as
Target have gone a step further in using information
gleaned from past purchases to determine things like
upcoming pregnancies, and have also developed ways to
market to these newly pregnant shoppers without making
them feel that their privacy has been invaded. The chapter
describes the psychological factors behind how marketing
and advertising works, not only for stores, but also in many
other areas. It was fascinating and a bit scary to read about
how easily we are being manipulated every day!
Part 3 addresses the habits of societies. In Chapter 8,
Duhigg uses several examples ranging from Rick Warren’s
successful venture with ‘‘A Purpose Driven Life’’ and
subsequently the mega-church of Saddleback to Rosa Parks
and the Montgomery bus boycott. Although I grew up in
the 60s, I was not fully aware of the details of the civil
rights movement and I found the accounts in this chapter to
be very enlightening, especially when viewed within the
context of the power of habits. Chapter 8 discusses the
neurology of our free will and begs the question as to
whether we are responsible for our habits, describing sev-
eral instances of crimes that were committed under unusual
circumstances such as sleepwalking and grieving.
Overall, this book gave me a lot of food for thought. I
continued to be impressed by the way that Charles Duhigg
could present so much information in such a fascinating
narrative. The book kept me entertained and curious, and
gave me insight into not only my own habits, but also those
of other people, agencies and organizations that I have
been involved with. At its conclusion, I was determined to
overcome my bad habits and develop new ones, and to take
what I learned into my professional life as well.
584 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:582–584
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