Have you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
Tali Sharot is the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the department of Experimental Psychology and The Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry at University College London and on the faculty of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Sharot holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from Tel Aviv University and a PhD from New York University. Currently, Sharot is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, Head Section Editor (neuroscience) for Science Advances and President of the Society of Neuroeconmics. Sharot’s research integrates neuroscience behavioral economics and psychology to study how emotion and motivation influences people’s beliefs and decisions. Prof. Sharot’s award winning books – The Optimism Bias (2011) and The Influential Mind (2017) – have been praised by outlets including the NYT, Times, Forbes and more. Her new book, Look Again, co-authored with Cass Sunstein, will be published in Feb 2024. In addition to her academic role, Sharot has served as a consultant for global companies and government projects, as well as on the board of several companies. Her two TED talks have been viewed more than 15 million times total. She has written multiple Op-Eds for the NYT, Time, Guardian, Washington Post, CNN and others.
In this interview I speak to Professor Tali Sharot, Director of the Affective Brain Lab. We discuss the fundamental role that habituation plays in shaping every aspect of our society, culture and ourselves.
Q: How fundamental is habituation to our lives?
[Tali Sharot]: …habituation is a very basic mechanism. It’s something we find in every neuron and every system of our brain, including our fundamental abilities like perception. A common example of this is when you enter a room filled with cigarette smoke. Initially, the smell is very noticeable, but studies show that within 20 minutes, you may no longer detect the smoke. This happens because your olfactory neurons, in this case, stop responding. The same principle applies to other systems in the brain.
For instance, in the visual system, there’s an illusion on the back cover that demonstrates this. If you focus on the same object without moving your eyes, the neurons in your visual cortex stop responding, and you stop seeing it. Essentially, we stop responding to and perceiving things that are not changing or are changing very gradually. This also extends to more complex aspects of our lives—we tend to respond or feel less toward things that have been present for a long time, whether they are good or bad.
As for why this happens, if you observe something that exists across all species and every system in the brain, there is likely an evolutionary reason behind it. In this case, it’s a way to conserve energy. Neurons stop responding to things that are already there, haven’t changed, and haven’t posed a threat, so they can allocate resources to respond to new stimuli—things that could harm us or things we need to acquire. This makes sense as a mechanism and underscores why habituation is important for survival. There are other high-level reasons as well, but I believe this covers what you were looking for.
Q: How does habituation impact our wellbeing?
[Tali Sharot]: One of the clearest benefits is that we respond less and less to negative events in our lives. When these negative things are beyond our control, this is a good thing—almost like a double negative. For example, over time, we feel less in response to events like a breakup, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job. This is beneficial because it allows us to move forward and continue with our lives. In fact, research shows that individuals who are slower to habituate to negative events tend to be more prone to depression.
For instance, a study mentioned in the book, conducted by Professor Aaron Heller at the University of Florida, asked students how they felt after receiving the results of an important exam. He continued checking in with them every 45 minutes until the end of the day. The study found that while everyone felt bad after receiving a poor grade, those with depression habituated more slowly, taking longer to return to their baseline level of well-being compared to those without a history of depression. This ability to habituate is crucial for moving forward.
On the other hand, we also habituate to the positive things in our lives, which has both advantages and disadvantages. Most of us have good things in our lives, whether it’s an interesting job, a loving relationship, or a comfortable home. However, because these things have been present for a long time, they may not bring us as much daily joy as they once did—we notice and feel them less. This means we may experience less joy overall and need to take steps to reignite that joy.
The positive side of this habituation is that it motivates us to move forward. Think about your first entry-level job—you were probably very excited about it. But if you remained just as excited about that job ten years later, you wouldn’t be motivated to seek promotions or new opportunities. Habituation enhances our motivation and is essential for our mental health. In fact, we dedicate an entire chapter to discussing how every mental health condition is associated with some form of impairment in habituation. We’ve mentioned depression, but many other mental health conditions also involve some form of habituation impairment.
Finally, on the negative side, there are things in our lives that aren’t ideal, but because we’ve habituated to them, we’re not as motivated to change them. Earlier, we discussed things like losing a loved one—situations where you can’t change the outcome and simply need to adapt. But there are other situations that we could potentially change. However, due to habituation, we might not notice them as much. This could be a suboptimal relationship with some cracks in it, or a job that could be better. We get used to these less-than-ideal situations and stop noticing them, which can prevent us from making positive changes. This also applies to societal issues like racism or sexism—because they’ve been present for so long, we might not notice them as much and therefore feel less motivated to address them.
Q: How can we notice more day to day?
[Tali Sharot]: The two main strategies, which are related to each other, are breaking things up and inducing change. Breaking things up refers to the concept of dishabituation. After you habituate to something, if you take a break from it for a while and then return, you can experience it more vividly and with a stronger emotional reaction. For example, in the visual illusion we discussed, if you fixate on coloured blobs without moving your eyes, you habituate, and the colours seem to fade to grey. But the moment you move your eyes, different neurons receive different input, and you see the colours again. This serves as a metaphor for life—taking breaks can help us re-engage with the things we’ve grown accustomed to.
This idea can be applied in various ways, such as taking breaks from your normal routine. Many people experience this when they go away for a business trip and return home, suddenly appreciating their family, home, and even the view from their window more than before. Although you may habituate again over time, inserting these breaks can be helpful. Jodie Foster provided a great example of this. After being away on a film shoot for six months, she returned home and found that mundane things suddenly seemed exciting—avocados, going to the gym, all felt wonderful.
This concept also applies to relationships, not by taking a break from the relationship itself, but by having an evening away, for example. It also applies to work. Some organisations allow employees to rotate between departments, and when they return to their original role, they can see it with fresh eyes, noticing both the good and the bad.
One interesting experiment demonstrated this concept. Participants were asked if they would rather listen to a song from beginning to end without breaks or with breaks. Most people chose no breaks, but when the experiment was conducted, those who had breaks enjoyed the song more. Initially, the joy of listening to the song is high, but it gradually decreases. A break, however, causes the joy to bounce back up, leading to a greater overall enjoyment. The same results were found with massages—those who took breaks enjoyed them more. Similarly, the peak enjoyment of a vacation is about 43 hours in, after which the joy starts to decline due to habituation. This might suggest that shorter vacations could be more fulfilling.
The related strategy is change or introducing diversity into your life. This can mean taking on different projects, jobs, or living in different places. It can also involve smaller changes, like taking a new route to work, trying a new sport, or taking an online course in an unfamiliar field. These new experiences disrupt habituation and put you in a state of learning, which elicits a lot of joy. In fact, research has shown that learning brings more joy than material rewards. For example, in a study where participants were given money for doing well on a task, they felt happiest not when they received the money, but when they learned something new about the task.
In summary, both breaking things up and inducing change are effective strategies to counteract habituation, leading to a more psychologically rich life.
Q: How does habituation relate to creativity and innovation?
[Tali Sharot]: There are two key data points that suggest this. The first comes from a series of studies by Kelly Maine, where she demonstrated that changing your immediate environment in simple ways—such as stepping out for a walk during office work or switching from working in a coffee shop to your kitchen—can increase creativity. Each time people changed their environment, their creativity spiked. While this boost only lasted for about six minutes before they habituated to the new environment, those six minutes can be crucial for discovering a “eureka” solution. The idea is that when you change your surroundings, your brain enters a more alert mode, becoming more receptive to new information, sounds, smells, and bits of knowledge.
The second point is something many people can relate to: often, new ideas don’t come while sitting in front of a computer. Instead, they emerge when you step away from the office, leave your computer, and engage in something different. That’s when solutions tend to appear.
Supporting this, another study found that highly creative individuals—those who have written books, hold patents, or have exhibited in galleries—tend to habituate more slowly. In experiments where participants repeatedly listened to the same sound, most people habituated and reacted less over time, a response measurable by certain physiological indicators. However, those who were more creative took longer to habituate. This slower habituation means that information stays in their minds longer, which can be distracting but also beneficial. The extended presence of visual or auditory information allows different bits of knowledge to collide and interact, leading to new ideas.
These two data points suggest that slow habituation or deliberate dishabituation can foster creativity. This is why practices like rotating employees through different departments or changing environments in organizations can be effective strategies.
Q: How does habituation create tyranny?
[Tali Sharot]: in many of these situations, change occurs very slowly, almost imperceptibly. One example is Nazi Germany during World War II. We have quotes from people who lived through that time, and one citizen described it as being like a cornfield growing so slowly that, as long as you’re there all the time, you don’t notice the change—until suddenly it’s above your head. Because the changes were so gradual, what might have initially been seen as alarming and elicited a strong reaction instead went unnoticed, as the gradual progression didn’t provoke the response it would have if it had happened all at once.
These incremental changes help explain some of the things we see today. Sometimes, we look around and think, “How could this be happening?” But we’ve become accustomed to things that, even 10 years ago, would have seemed impossible. Over time, we get used to these changes, and they become the new norm. Once we habituate and those norms are established, we’re less likely to respond to them. This doesn’t mean that change can’t happen, but it does make it more difficult.
Q: How can habituation help us better understand discrimination?
[Tali Sharot]: I think we can approach this from two perspectives. One is from the viewpoint of the victim—though I’m not sure if that’s the best term—the person who faces discrimination. This applies even in contexts like Nazi Germany. The other perspective is that of the bystanders, the people around them. In both cases, habituation and acceptance can develop over time.
For the person experiencing discrimination, whether over time or from birth, there’s a tendency to accept it as a constant. They learn to expect such reactions and, as a result, are less likely to respond. This is a very real phenomenon. For example, when I reflect on gender discrimination in academia, I see that while there has been some change over the past decade, in the early 2000s, I simply accepted things as they were. I thought it was normal to be the only female speaker at a conference, but now that’s less common, indicating that change is happening.
On one hand, individuals may come to expect and accept discrimination. On the other hand, there’s an error signal in the brain—this affects self-perception and conflicts with daily experiences and abilities. Take a female pilot, for instance. She might live in a world where it’s considered normal to believe that men are better at handling big equipment. She might partially accept this belief, but it conflicts with her daily experience of competently controlling that equipment. These error signals can prevent full acceptance of such discrimination. This is where we see “dishabituation entrepreneurs“—people who not only recognise dishabituation but also inspire change in others.
Of course, there’s also the habituation of bystanders, as we discussed with the example of German citizens during the Nazi era. Novelty on its own is attention-grabbing, which explains why any changes, whether for better or worse, will catch people’s attention.