Essay 2: Habits-How and Why We Change
For this essay, write in response to prompts that ask you to consider Charles Duhigg’s ideas about how habits work: how they are formed, strengthened, and can be changed.
Your essay should be 5-6 pages and incorporate quotes, paraphrases, and summaries from the reading we have discussed and from the library database articles you have found in research.
Choose one of the following prompts.
In the first three chapters of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg lays out his theory about how habits develop, shape our behaviors, and transform.
In no more than one paragraph, summarize his theory and then, answer the question: How can college students who want to improve their academic performance best develop and/or change their habits to achieve success?
Using Duhigg’s language and ideas about the habit loop to make your case. (Discuss no more than three habits; a focus on just one central habit–discussing how a student might go about developing it and its beneficial consequences would be great.)
In chapter 4, “Keystone Habits, or the Ballad of Paul O’Neill” from The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg describes how keystone habits shape our institutional behaviors and can transform our collective or social endeavors.
In no more than one paragraph, summarize these ideas and then, answer the question: If you were advising an institution or group such as a church, a sports team, a club, a group of political protesters, a political campaign, or another group organization, what keystone habit would you advise it to adopt in order that it might better achieve its goals?
Here, you will need to be specific, not over-general: choose a specific group; identify a specific goal it wants to achieve and is having some difficulty achieving; identify a specific keystone habit it might implement that would have the cascading beneficial effects that Duhigg discusses; discuss what those benefits are and how they are linked to organizational goals.
In chapter 9, “The Neurology of Free Will: Are We Responsible for Our Habits?” from The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg presents the controversy over the extent to which people are personally responsible for their own habitual behavior and its consequences.
In no more than one paragraph, summarize these ideas and then, answer the question: Do you think people should be held accountable for their habitual behaviors and their consequences? Focus on the example of Angie Bachmann from the chapter, but add others from your research.
