Chapter 12: Habits Are Contagious: The People Around You

Lunch at the Desk

Kelechi is thirty-four and recently started a new job as an analyst in a company that plans public transport routes. In his previous job, at a smaller organization, everyone stopped for lunch at half past twelve and ate together in a small kitchen, chatting about everything except work. Kelechi enjoyed these lunches. He came back to his desk refreshed, and he knew his colleagues well.

In his new job, things are different. On his first day, at half past twelve, Kelechi looked around and saw that everyone was still at their desks. A few people were eating sandwiches while typing. Others did not seem to eat at all. Nobody went to the kitchen. Kelechi felt awkward. He did not want to seem lazy or uncommitted in his first week. So he went out, bought a sandwich and ate it at his desk, while reading reports.

Within a few weeks, eating at his desk had become Kelechi's habit. He no longer thought about it. At lunchtime, he reached for his sandwich and kept working. But he noticed that he felt more tired in the afternoons than he used to, and that he knew very little about his new colleagues. He also noticed that he had started checking work emails in the evenings, something he had never done before, because many of his colleagues did.

One day, a new colleague joined the team, a woman named Gudrun, who had transferred from another office. At half past twelve on her first day, she stood up, stretched and said cheerfully to the people around her, "I am going to eat in the kitchen. Would anyone like to join me?" There was a surprised silence. Then Kelechi said, "Yes, I will come." Two others joined them. Within a month, a small group was eating lunch together in the kitchen most days.

Kelechi's experience shows something that many people notice but rarely think about: our habits are often shaped by the people around us. We pick up habits from our colleagues, families, friends and communities, often without realizing it. This chapter looks at what psychology and social science say about how habits spread between people, and how we can use this knowledge.

Doing What Others Do

One of the most consistent findings in social psychology is that people tend to adjust their behaviour to match what they see others doing. When we are in a new situation, or when we are unsure how to behave, we look at other people and follow their lead. This is often a sensible strategy. Other people's behaviour gives us information about what is normal, safe or expected. But it also means that we can pick up habits, good and bad, simply by being around people who have them.

Researchers sometimes distinguish between two kinds of social influence. One is about what people actually do: the behaviours we see around us. The other is about what people approve or disapprove of: the rules, often unspoken, about what is acceptable. Both can shape our habits. Kelechi saw his colleagues eating at their desks, which told him what people did. He also sensed, without anyone saying it, that leaving the desk for lunch might be seen as a lack of commitment, which told him what people might think.

Studies in many settings have found that information about what other people do can influence behaviour. For example, some studies have found that telling people that most others in their situation behave in a particular way, such as saving energy or reusing towels in a hotel, made them more likely to do the same. The size of these effects varies, and not every study has found them. But the general principle, that we are influenced by what we believe others are doing, is widely accepted.

Researchers have also studied whether habits spread through networks of people, such as groups of friends, families and neighbours. Some studies have suggested that behaviours such as eating patterns, exercise and smoking tend to cluster in groups of people who know each other, and that changes in one person's habits may be linked to changes in their friends' habits. These findings are interesting, but they are also debated. It is hard to tell whether people influence each other, or whether people with similar habits simply tend to become friends, or share the same environment. Most researchers agree that social influence plays some role, but its exact size is uncertain.

For young people, social influence may be especially strong. Research on teenagers has suggested that the presence of friends can make them more likely to take risks, and that they are very sensitive to how their peers see them. This does not mean that young people are simply copying each other. They are learning about their social world, which is an important part of growing up. But it does mean that the habits of their friends can have a real effect on their own.

The Power of Shared Routines

Social influence on habits works through several channels. One is imitation: we see others doing something and copy it, often without thinking. Another is the cues that other people provide: a colleague who goes to the kitchen at half past twelve becomes a cue for lunch; a family that sits down together at seven becomes a cue for dinner. A third is the environment that groups create: a team that keeps a fruit bowl, a household that keeps the television off at meals, a group of friends that meets for walks.

Shared routines can be particularly powerful. When a group of people do something together at a regular time and place, the routine becomes part of the group's life, and it is supported by everyone. If one person forgets or feels unmotivated, the others carry them along. Gudrun's lunch invitation turned a solitary decision into a shared routine, which was much easier to maintain than any individual resolution.

Social support is another channel. Studies of people trying to change health habits, such as exercising more or eating differently, have often found that support from family, friends or groups is associated with better results, though the evidence varies and depends on the kind of support. Support can take many forms: encouragement, practical help, doing the habit together or simply someone who notices and cares. It can also include a sense of accountability: knowing that someone will ask how you are getting on.

At the same time, social influence can work against the habits we want. A household where everyone snacks in front of the television, a workplace where everyone works late, a group of friends who always meet in places that encourage unhelpful habits: these can make change much harder. Social cues can be as powerful as physical ones, and when they point in the wrong direction, they can pull us back into old patterns even when we are trying hard to change.

The practical meaning of all this is twofold. First, it is worth paying attention to the social side of our habits: who we spend time with, what they do and what routines we share. Second, we are not only influenced by others. We also influence them. Gudrun changed the lunch habits of a whole team by simply inviting people to join her. Each of us is part of the social environment of others, and our habits can help or hinder theirs.

Kelechi and the Lunch Group

After Gudrun's invitation, Kelechi began to look more carefully at the habits he had picked up in his new job. He realized that eating at his desk, checking emails in the evenings and staying late on some days were not things he had chosen. He had absorbed them from the people around him in his first weeks, out of a wish to fit in.

Kelechi decided to keep the habits that were genuinely useful and to change the others, with the help of the lunch group. He made eating lunch in the kitchen a regular part of his day. He also talked with Gudrun and another colleague about evening emails. They discovered that all three of them felt they had to check emails because they assumed everyone else did. They agreed to stop checking after seven in the evening and to mention this to their manager.

Their manager was surprised. She said that she did not expect anyone to answer emails in the evening, and that she had been doing it herself only because she thought her team expected her to be available. The whole team had been caught in a habit that nobody actually wanted, each person following what they believed the others expected. Once it was discussed openly, the team agreed that evening emails would only be used in real emergencies.

Over the following months, Kelechi felt much better. His afternoons were more energetic after a proper lunch break. His evenings were his own again. And he had made several friends in the lunch group. "I picked up the bad habits without noticing," he says. "And I changed them by doing something with other people. It is much easier to change a habit when you are not the only one."

Kelechi's story shows two important things. First, habits can spread through a group because each person believes that others expect them, even when nobody actually does. Talking openly about such habits can sometimes reveal that everyone would prefer something different. Second, one person's small action, like Gudrun's invitation, can start a new shared routine that changes the habits of many.

Magda and the Family Table

Magda is forty and lives with her partner and their two children, aged eleven and fourteen. Over the past few years, the family's evening meals have changed. Everyone brings their phone to the table. The children look at videos and messages while they eat. Magda's partner checks the news. Magda herself often answers work messages. Meals are quick and quiet, and the family rarely talks.

Magda did not like this, but she found it hard to change. When she put her own phone away, the others kept theirs, and she felt foolish sitting in silence. When she asked the children to put their phones away, they complained that their father was using his. Each person's habit was supported by the others' habits. The phones at the table had become a shared family routine, even though nobody had decided on it.

Magda realized that changing the habit would need to be a family decision, not a rule imposed by one person. At a weekend breakfast, she suggested an experiment: for two weeks, everyone, including the adults, would leave their phones in a basket in the hallway during evening meals. She asked the children for ideas about what to do instead, and the younger one suggested that everyone share the best and worst thing that had happened in their day.

The first few meals were awkward. The children grumbled, and Magda's partner admitted that he felt strange without his phone. But by the end of the first week, the family was talking more at meals than they had for years. The best-and-worst game became a regular routine, and the children began to look forward to it. At the end of the two weeks, everyone agreed to continue, with an exception for important calls.

"I could not change it alone," Magda says. "As long as everyone else had their phones, mine was just one more. When we all did it together, it became easy." Magda's story shows how family habits are shared and supported by everyone in the household, and how changing them often works best when everyone is involved, including the adults, who set the example.

Raúl and the Study Group

Raúl is seventeen and in his last year of secondary school. His exams are approaching, and he knows he needs to study. But his group of friends spends most evenings together, playing games online or meeting in the park. When Raúl tries to stay home and study, he feels left out and worries that his friends will think he is boring. Most evenings, he joins them, and his studying suffers.

Raúl's situation is one many young people face. His friends' habits were pulling him away from what he wanted to do, and his wish to belong was stronger than his wish to study. He did not want to give up his friends, and he should not have to. But he needed to find a way for his social life and his studies to fit together.

Raúl talked with two of his friends who also had exams coming up. They admitted that they were worried too, but had not wanted to say so. Together, they decided to form a study group. They met three evenings a week at the library, studied together for two hours and then went to the park or played games afterwards. The rest of their group sometimes joined the study sessions, and sometimes met them afterwards.

The study group changed everything for Raúl. Studying was no longer something he did alone while his friends had fun. It was something he did with his friends, followed by time together. The social pull that had been working against his studies was now working for them. His friends noticed when he did not come, and he noticed when they did not. They helped each other with difficult topics and tested each other before exams.

"I thought I had to choose between my friends and my exams," Raúl says. "But I just needed my friends to study with me." Raúl's story shows that the powerful social influence many young people feel can be directed toward helpful habits as well as unhelpful ones. Finding friends who share a goal, and building shared routines around it, can make the goal much easier to reach.

Raúl also noticed that the study group made the hardest part of studying, starting, much easier. Alone at home, he could always find a reason to delay. At the library, with his friends already there and their books already open, starting simply happened. The group acted as a cue, a source of support and a small reward all at once. When the exams were over, the friends agreed that they would keep meeting at the library once a week during their first year at college, because they had enjoyed it more than they expected.

Dorit and the Walking Group

Dorit is sixty-three and has lived alone since her husband died two years ago. Her doctor encouraged her to walk more, for her health and her mood. Dorit tried walking alone, but she found it lonely and hard to keep up. On grey or rainy days, she stayed inside. After a few weeks, she had stopped altogether.

A neighbour told Dorit about a walking group that met at the local community centre three mornings a week. Dorit was nervous about joining a group of strangers, but her neighbour offered to come with her the first time. The group was friendly and walked at a gentle pace, chatting as they went. Dorit enjoyed it more than she had expected.

Within a few months, the walking group had become one of the most important parts of Dorit's week. She went three times a week, in all weathers, because the others expected her and because she enjoyed their company. If she missed a walk, someone would call to check that she was well. The group also went for coffee after some walks, and Dorit made several friends. She noticed that her mood had improved as well as her fitness.

"I could never make myself walk alone," Dorit says. "But with the group, I do not even think about it. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, I go. It is as natural as breathing." Dorit's experience shows the power of a shared routine with built-in support: a regular time and place, people who expect you and the reward of company and conversation.

Dorit's story also touches on something important: the connection between habits and loneliness. For people who live alone, especially after a loss, building habits that involve other people can bring both health benefits and companionship. If feelings of loneliness or low mood are heavy and lasting, it is wise to talk with a doctor or another qualified professional, as well as seeking company and support from others.

Practical Steps: Using the Social Side of Habits

The first step is to notice the social habits you have absorbed. Think about the people you spend the most time with: at work, at home, among friends. Which of your habits did you pick up from them? Which of these serve you well, and which would you like to change?

The second step is to talk about shared habits openly. Like Kelechi's team with their evening emails, you may find that habits which seem to be expected by everyone are actually wanted by nobody. A simple, honest conversation can sometimes change a group's habits quickly.

The third step is to find others who share your goal. If you want to build a habit, look for people who want to build the same one. Exercise with a friend, study in a group, cook with a family member, join a club or a community group. Shared routines are often much easier to keep than solitary ones.

The fourth step is to make changes together. If a habit is shared by a household or a group, try to change it together, as Magda's family did with their phones. When everyone takes part, including those who set the example, the change is supported by all.

The fifth step is to be the one who invites. Like Gudrun, you can start a new shared routine by inviting others to join you. You do not need to persuade or lecture anyone. Simply doing something helpful and inviting others to join can change the habits of a group.

The sixth step is to choose your company thoughtfully. You cannot always choose who you spend time with, but where you can, notice how different people and groups affect your habits. Spend more time with those whose habits support the life you want, without needing to reject anyone.

Influence Is Not an Excuse, and Not Always Kind

It is worth saying that understanding social influence is not a reason to blame others for our habits. Other people shape our habits, but we also make choices, and we can influence others in return. The aim of this chapter is not to find someone to blame, but to see more clearly how habits work in groups, so that we can use this knowledge wisely.

It is also important to recognize that social influence is not always gentle. Sometimes, groups put strong pressure on people to adopt habits that are harmful: drinking heavily, taking risks, overworking or excluding others. If you feel pressured by a group to do things that harm you or others, it is right to step back, to seek support and, if needed, to find different company. Young people in particular may need support from trusted adults when facing such pressure.

Finally, it is worth remembering that changing a shared habit can sometimes cause tension. Not everyone in a group will want to change, and some may feel criticized. Approaching change with kindness, inviting rather than demanding and accepting that others may choose differently can help keep relationships warm while habits change.

A Short Exercise: A Map of Your Habit Company

This exercise helps you see how the people around you shape your habits, and how you might use this. It takes about fifteen minutes.

Take a page and draw a small circle in the middle, with your name in it. Around it, write the names of five to eight people or groups you spend the most time with: family members, colleagues, friends, neighbours, clubs. Next to each name, write one or two habits you share with them, or habits you have picked up from them. Mark each habit with a plus sign if it helps you, and a minus sign if it does not.

Look at the map. Which people or groups support the habits you want? Which pull you toward habits you would like to change? Are there habits marked with a minus that might be shared by others who would also like to change them?

Choose one habit you want to build or change. Write down one person or group who could help you with it, and one way you could invite them: a conversation, an invitation to do something together, a suggestion for a shared experiment. Then write one way you could be a helpful influence on someone else's habits.

Try your invitation in the coming week. Afterwards, write a few lines about what happened. Kelechi did this exercise a few weeks after joining the lunch group. Next to "my team", he wrote "lunch at the desk, minus" and "evening emails, minus". Next to "the lunch group", he wrote "lunch in the kitchen, plus". His invitation was to ask Gudrun and another colleague whether they also felt pressure to answer emails in the evening. That conversation changed his evenings.

Chapter Summary

People tend to adjust their behaviour to match what they see others doing and what they believe others expect, a finding that is widely accepted in social psychology. Information about what others do can influence behaviour, though effects vary. Studies of social networks have suggested that habits may spread among people who know each other, but the size of this effect is debated, because similar people may simply cluster together. Young people may be especially sensitive to the influence of peers. Shared routines, the cues others provide and social support can all make habits easier to build and keep, while groups can also pull us toward habits we would like to change.

Kelechi and the lunch group, Magda and the family table, Raúl and his study group and Dorit and her walking group all found that the people around them shaped their habits, and that changing habits together, openly and with invitations rather than demands, made change much easier. Social influence is not an excuse for our habits, and it is not always kind. Where pressure is harmful, it is right to step back and seek support.

In the next chapter, we will look at what happens when we slip back into old habits, and why the way we respond to a slip matters so much.