The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (58 page)

9.24
bounced checks at a casino
H. Lesieur and S. Blume, “The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS): A New Instrument for the Identification of Pathological Gamblers,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
144, no. 9 (1987): 1184–88. In a fact-checking letter, Habib wrote, “Many of our subjects were categorized as pathological gamblers based on other types of behavior that the screening form asks about. For example, it would have been sufficient for a participant to have been counted as a pathological gambler if they simply: 1) had gambled to win money that they had previously lost gambling, and 2) on some occasions they gambled more than they had intended to. We used a very low threshold to classify our subjects as pathological gamblers.”

9.25
circuitry involved in the habit loop
M. Potenza, V. Voon, and D. Weintraub, “Drug Insight: Impulse Control Disorders and Dopamine Therapies in Parkinson’s Disease,”
Nature Clinical Practice Neurology
12, no. 3 (2007): 664–72; J. R. Cornelius et al., “Impulse Control Disorders with the Use of Dopaminergic Agents in Restless Legs Syndrome: A Case Control Study,”
Sleep
22, no. 1 (2010): 81–87.

9.26
Hundreds of similar cases are pending
Ed Silverman, “Compulsive Gambler Wins Lawsuit Over Mirapex,”
Pharmalot
, July 31, 2008.

9.27
“gamblers are in control of their actions”
For more on the neurology of gambling, see A. J. Lawrence et al., “Problem Gamblers Share Deficits in Impulsive Decision-Making with Alcohol-Dependent Individuals,”
Addiction
104, no. 6 (2009): 1006–15; E. Cognat et al., “ ‘Habit’ Gambling Behaviour Caused by Ischemic Lesions Affecting the Cognitive Territories of the Basal Ganglia,”
Journal of Neurology
257, no. 10 (2010): 1628–32; J. Emshoff, D. Gilmore, and J. Zorland, “Veterans and Problem Gambling: A Review of the Literature,” Georgia State University, February 2010,
http://www2.gsu.edu/~psyjge/Rsrc/PG_IPV_Veterans.pdf
; T. van Eimeren et al., “Drug-Induced Deactivation of
Inhibitory Networks Predicts Pathological Gambling in PD,”
Neurology
75, no. 19 (2010): 1711–16; L. Cottler and K. Leung, “Treatment of Pathological Gambling,”
Current Opinion in Psychiatry
22, no. 1 (2009): 69–74; M. Roca et al., “Executive Functions in Pathologic Gamblers Selected in an Ecologic Setting,”
Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
21, no. 1 (2008): 1–4; E. D. Driver-Dunckley et al., “Gambling and Increased Sexual Desire with Dopaminergic Medications in Restless Legs Syndrome,”
Clinical
Neuropharmacology
30, no. 5 (2007): 249–55; Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, “Gambling and Risk Behaviour: A Literature Review,” University of Calgary, March 2009.

9.28
“they’re acting without choice”
In an email, Habib clarified his thoughts on this topic: “It is a question about free will and self-control, and one that falls as much in the domain of philosophy as in cognitive neuroscience.… If we say that the gambling behavior in the Parkinson’s patient is out of their own hands and driven by their medication, why can’t we (or don’t we) make the same argument in the case of the pathological gambler given that the same areas of the brain seem to be active? The only (somewhat unsatisfactory) answer that I can come up with (and one that you mention yourself) is that as a society we are more comfortable removing responsibility if there is an external agent that it can be placed upon. So, it is easy in the Parkinson’s case to say that the gambling pathology resulted from the medication, but in the case of the pathological gambler, because there is no external agent influencing their behavior (well, there is—societal pressures, casino billboards, life stresses, etc.—but, nothing as pervasive as medication that a person must take), we are more reluctant to blame the addiction and prefer to put the responsibility for their pathological behavior on themselves—‘they should know better and not gamble,’ for example. I think as cognitive neuroscientists learn more—and ‘modern’ brain imaging is only about 20–25 years old as a field—perhaps some of these misguided societal beliefs (that even we cognitive neuroscientists sometimes hold) will slowly begin to change. For example, from our data, while I can comfortably conclude that there are definite differences in the brains of pathological gamblers versus non-pathological gamblers, at least when they are gambling, and I might even be able to make some claims such as the near-misses appear more win-like to the pathological gambler but more loss-like to the non-pathological gambler, I cannot state with any confidence or certainty that these differences therefore imply that the pathological gambler does not have a choice when they see a billboard advertising a local casino—that they are a slave to their urges. In the absence of hard direct evidence, I guess the best we can do is draw inferences by analogy, but there is much uncertainty associated with such comparisons.”

9.29
“whatever the latter may be”
William James,
Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals.

9.30
the Metaphysical Club
Louis Menand,
The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
(
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002).

9.31
“traced by itself before”
James is quoting the French psychologist and philosopher Léon Dumont’s essay “De l’habitude.”

C
HARLES
D
UHIGG
is an investigative reporter for
The New York Times,
where he contributes to the newspaper and the magazine. He authored or contributed to
Golden Opportunities
(2007), a series of articles that examined how companies are trying to take advantage of aging Americans,
The Reckoning
(2008), which studied the causes and outcomes of the financial crisis, and
Toxic Waters
(2009), about the worsening pollution in American waters and regulators’ response.

For his work, Mr. Duhigg has received the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, George Polk, Gerald Loeb, and other awards, and he was part of a team of finalists for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. He has appeared on
This American Life, The Dr. Oz Show,
NPR,
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,
and
Frontline.

Mr. Duhigg is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale University. Before becoming a journalist, Mr. Duhigg worked in private equity and—for one terrifying day—was a bike messenger in San Francisco.

Mr. Duhigg can acquire bad habits—most notably regarding fried foods—within minutes, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, a marine biologist, and their two sons, whose habits include waking at 5:00
A.M.
, flinging food at dinnertime, and smiling perfectly.

C
HARLES
D
UHIGG
is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact the Random House Speakers Bureau at 212-572-2013 or
[email protected]
.