Center for a New American Security

A recent article in the NY Times details the efforts of Dr. Val Kurtis to get people to wash their hands in poor, sub-Saharan African countries. Her method: study the work of industry giants to see how they created habits in Western consumers.

If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of canny advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands advertising that no morning is complete without a minty-fresh mouth.

A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers — which are effective even if applied at high noon — are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”

Kip believes there are lessons learned for our advisors conducting Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. At the macro-level, as we identify trends that undermine the force, e.g., poor vehicle maintenance, failure to clean weapons, failure to account for ammunition, etc., focus campaigns on creating habits associated with parts of a soldier's daily life, e.g., "finish your daily prayer, clean your weapon."

At the advisor level as well, there is plenty of utility in understanding the way humans form habits...indeed, "understanding human nature" is one of the identified advisor skills in our emerging security force assistance doctrine. Kip will certainly keep the following in mind the next time he works an advisor mission:

“Habits are formed when the memory associates specific actions with specific places or moods,” said Dr. Wood, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. “If you regularly eat chips while sitting on the couch, after a while, seeing the couch will automatically prompt you to reach for the Doritos. These associations are sometimes so strong that you have to replace the couch with a wooden chair for a diet to succeed.”

If, as the article suggests, up to 45% of what humans do on any given day is habitual, then much of the role of the advisor might seem to be in fostering the right habits and identifying the underlying cues that cause bad military habits.