Good habits can be formed by repetitive behaviour

A good news may be coming up for parents who are trying to make sure their kids turn out well-mannered and well-behaved. This news may also be able to explain conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder. According to a PTI report, a research conducted by researchers from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom has come up with a model that shows that the frequency of an action, or how much joy or satisfaction it gives you will determine the formation of good or bad habits.

An associate professor from the same university said, “ Much of what we do is driven by habits, yet how habits are learned and formed is still what remains mysterious. Our work sheds new light on this question by building a mathematical model of how simple repetition can lead to the type of habits we see in people and other creatures.”

The study works on the principle of 'rewards', something that parents have been using forever to build better habits in children. Digital rodents were given a choice between two levers – one with the reward which was also the 'correct' one, and one without the reward. After the digital rodents were trained for a short while, they chose the 'correct' lever even when the reward on it was swapped.


Similarly, when trained to choose the 'wrong' lever, the rodents chose the wrong lever even when the reward on it was taken away.