
Absence does make the heart grow fonder. New research has deep-dived habituation, where we grow to take the great things in our lives for granted. Indeed, this can apply to relationships, but as a cornerstone of human behaviour, it has many applications.
Imagine you’re studying in a quiet library and hearing the constant hum of the air conditioner. You quickly habituate to this sound and stop noticing it. Suddenly, the air conditioner makes a loud bang. This unexpected change (dishabituation stimulus) disrupts your habituation, and you now pay attention to the air conditioner again.
Habituation is a natural process in which an organism gradually decreases its response to a repeated stimulus that is considered unimportant or irrelevant. If you get a new piece of clothing or jewellery, eventually, the thrill and newness of that item fade. That’s habituation.
However, if a change is introduced to a familiar stimulus, it can disrupt the habituation process and cause the organism to pay attention again. This change is called a dishabituation stimulus. That’s what this focus on habituation considers: taking breaks so you can pause and register just how good your life might actually be, just that you’ve grown to see it as normal.
The Basics
The key characteristics of dishabituation are that it requires change, an element of the temporary, and a strong response. Dishabituation plays a crucial role in our daily lives. It helps us stay alert to potential changes in our environment, even if we’ve become accustomed to certain stimuli. For instance, you might stop noticing traffic noise while driving, but a sudden loud honk would dishabituate you, making you pay attention to potential danger.
Dishabituation also helps us learn and remember new information, especially when presented in a way that stands out from the background. It helps us focus on important changes in our environment, even if they are subtle so that we can maintain attention. Dishabituation can also be a critical safety mechanism, alerting us to potential dangers that might otherwise be ignored.
Leveraging Dishabituation
Habituation principles can help us reflect upon how good (or not) we’ve got it in relationships. Studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology highlighted the give-and-take nature of appreciation within romantic relationships. The research found that people who feel more appreciated by their partners also exhibit a greater appreciation for them. Those who are more appreciative of their partners respond more to their partner’s needs, so they become more attuned and sensitive to their partner’s emotions over time. These people are also more likely to stay committed to their relationships.
When you’re showing gratitude to your partner, you should be sincere and specific. Habituation leads us to zone out and think less of comments like “Oh, thanks for doing the laundry” but a comment that speaks to how it intricately has impacted you, something about how it took a load off your emotional labour list when they put that load of washing on, will cut deeper and actually mean a lot more. Showing genuine value matters way more than flippant, albeit positively intended, comments. Habituation is to blame. Make your expressions of gratitude more heartfelt, and they’ll have more impact. It will prompt you to think deeper about what the person actually means to you, only helping you regulate your emotions and point of view in the long run.
A 2020 study in Cognition and Emotion found a link between the level of unexpectedness of a gift and people’s expressions of gratitude. Participants who perceived the gift as highly unexpected were more inclined to express gratitude. Small gestures matter! That’s the bottom line. They show you’re thinking of them and willing to do something about it. Relationship complacency is just the tip of the habituation iceberg, though…
So What?
When the initial spark of a relationship fades, a deeper and more meaningful love can come through. But if you sense complacency emerging, remember those butterflies you used to get. Reminisce about the early days of your relationship. Recreate some of those special moments or activities you enjoyed together. Further, routine is good, but too much can get stale, so try something new together. Explore a new hobby, take a weekend trip, or have a surprise date night. New experiences can reignite excitement and help you see each other in a fresh light.
Harvard law professor Cass R. Sunstein has a new book, Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There. In the novel, habituation takes focus. Neuroscientists use this term, but for the average person, it’s a reset. That is the bottom line of this article: to reset and refocus. One major reflection from the book is the flip side of habituation: what to do regarding negative tasks. With habituation rules in mind, positive tasks can have greater happiness attributed to them if a short break is taken. It’s why we enjoy a show more if we watch one episode a week instead of binge-watching it.
So, despite it seeming smart to take a break from something bad, it’s actually best to take the grim times all in one go. The suffering associated with negative tasks decreases over time as people habituate to them. There’s truth to ripping the bandage off. Combining these two reflections – those being that positive tasks should have breaks taken among them and that negative tasks should be done in one go – we also are better at identifying aspects of our lives we simply aren’t happy with. Unhappiness isn’t inherently bad; it drives people to change their lives.