I had a particularly productive day today, especially given the fact that it's a Monday and I spent my entire weekend working. I wasn't just productive with my work, but I even got around to doing yoga even when I came home feeling ridiculously tired. While most people believe that I am highly disciplined, a few of those close to me know all too well that I can in fact be very lazy. While I was proud of what I had done today, the (unofficial, unlicensed) psychologist and learning teacher in me wanted to understand what got me moving today. In the process, that led me to the idea of behavioral momentum, which is basically says that we become more likely to behave in a certain way if we have already begun engaging in similar behaviors (Ormrod, 2012). Now because of the use of the word momentum in that particular psych concept, that got me thinking about Newton's laws of motion and its possible links to our behaviors. From there, I realized that Newton's laws do not just apply to the physical motion of objects, but can also (partly) predict our behaviors.
Law I. Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of
uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by
forces impressed thereon.
This reflects the idea of behavioral momentum, which is actually a double-edged sword in our behaviors. When we are in a state of rest, it is often very difficult to get started, unless we have a force that compels us to get off our lazy butts and start moving. But once we do encounter that force to get us started, be it external pressure or our powers of self-regulation, we are likely to keep engaging in that behavior - at least until we encounter a roadblock. This roadblock might initially come in the form of a notification from a social networking site, a nagging thought, or a reminder of an unfinished task. Now when this roadblock cues a very strong habit, this may exert a force strong enough to stop us in the middle of whatever activity we're doing. And once we entertain these and get started on our habits, that becomes even more difficult to stop because there is so little force required to keep a habit moving. The fact that we use the term "force of habit" suggests their strong push on us, so the key step here is preventing reminders of these habits from making their presence felt in the first place (Wood & Neal, 2007).
Law II. The alteration of motion is ever proportional to
the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in
which that force is impressed.
You're probably more familiar with this law in terms of formulas like f = ma (i.e., force = mass x acceleration) and a = f/m (acceleration = force/mass). Let's focus on that second formula on acceleration. How much speed we gain depends on opposing influences - while we have some force pushing us towards our desired direction, there is some mass that is also holding us back. It's quite fitting that Motte's (1729) translation of Newton used the term motive force, so we can think about this force as our motivation. Our motivation drives us toward our goals, but anyone who has ever given in to that plate of sisig while on a diet, or spent an hour on Facebook instead of studying knows that motivation is not enough. There is that mass, that Blerch as The Oatmeal puts it, that weighs us down and slows down our progress. The Blerch can come in many forms, and it is essential to identify what our Blerch is. By knowing its nature and its specific influence on us, we can increase our motivational force (as well as supporting forces like self-regulation) to reduce its effects on our acceleration.
Law III.
In traditional conceptions of behaviorism, people were thought of
as machines that only reacted predictably to the stimuli in our environment.
But years later, the social cognitive theorists, particularly Bandura came up
with the idea of reciprocal determinism, where individuals, behaviors, and the
environment all exert an influence on one another (Ormrod, 2012). All of our
behaviors have some impact on the people and events around us, but all of the
people and events around as also have an impact on our behaviors. Therefore,
what we do can have a lasting impact on ourselves along with the people and
things around us. This, I think, is both inspiring and terrifying.
References
Newton, I. (1729). Newton's
principia: The mathematical principles of natural philosophy. (A.
Motte, Trans.). New York: Daniel Adee. (Original work published 1987)
Ormrod, J.E. (2012). Principles of learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Wood, W., & Neal, D. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843-863.
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