HOW TO USE TEMPTATION BUNDLING TO MAKE YOUR
HABITS MORE ATTRACTIVE
Ronan Byrne, an electrical engineering student in Dublin, Ireland, enjoyed
watching Netflix, but he also knew that he should exercise more often than
he did. Putting his engineering skills to use, Byrne hacked his stationary
bike and connected it to his laptop and television. Then he wrote a
computer program that would allow Netflix to run only if he was cycling at
a certain speed. If he slowed down for too long, whatever show he was
watching would pause until he started pedaling again. He was, in the words
of one fan, “eliminating obesity one Netflix binge at a time.”
He was also employing temptation bundling to make his exercise habit
more attractive. Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want
to do with an action you need to do. In Byrne’s case, he bundled watching
Netflix (the thing he wanted to do) with riding his stationary bike (the thing
he needed to do).
Businesses are masters at temptation bundling. For instance, when the
American Broadcasting Company, more commonly known as ABC,
launched its Thursday-night television lineup for the 2014–2015 season,
they promoted temptation bundling on a massive scale.
Every Thursday, the company would air three shows created by
screenwriter Shonda Rhimes—Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get
Away with Murder. They branded it as “TGIT on ABC” (TGIT stands for
Thank God It’s Thursday). In addition to promoting the shows, ABC
encouraged viewers to make popcorn, drink red wine, and enjoy the
evening.
Andrew Kubitz, head of scheduling for ABC, described the idea behind
the campaign: “We see Thursday night as a viewership opportunity, with
either couples or women by themselves who want to sit down and escape
and have fun and drink their red wine and have some popcorn.” The
brilliance of this strategy is that ABC was associating the thing they needed
viewers to do (watch their shows) with activities their viewers already
wanted to do (relax, drink wine, and eat popcorn).
Over time, people began to connect watching ABC with feeling relaxed
and entertained. If you drink red wine and eat popcorn at 8 p.m. every
Thursday, then eventually “8 p.m. on Thursday” means relaxation and
entertainment. The reward gets associated with the cue, and the habit of
turning on the television becomes more attractive.
You’re more likely to find a behavior attractive if you get to do one of
your favorite things at the same time. Perhaps you want to hear about the
latest celebrity gossip, but you need to get in shape. Using temptation
bundling, you could only read the tabloids and watch reality shows at the
gym. Maybe you want to get a pedicure, but you need to clean out your
email inbox. Solution: only get a pedicure while processing overdue work
emails.
Temptation bundling is one way to apply a psychology theory known as
Premack’s Principle. Named after the work of professor David Premack, the
principle states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable
behaviors.” In other words, even if you don’t really want to process overdue
work emails, you’ll become conditioned to do it if it means you get to do
something you really want to do along the way.
You can even combine temptation bundling with the habit stacking
strategy we discussed in Chapter 5 to create a set of rules to guide your
behavior.
The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:
1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
If you want to read the news, but you need to express more gratitude:
1. After I get my morning coffee, I will say one thing I’m grateful for
that happened yesterday (need).
2. After I say one thing I’m grateful for, I will read the news (want).
If you want to watch sports, but you need to make sales calls:
1. After I get back from my lunch break, I will call three potential
clients (need).
2. After I call three potential clients, I will check ESPN (want).
If you want to check Facebook, but you need to exercise more:
1. After I pull out my phone, I will do ten burpees (need).
2. After I do ten burpees, I will check Facebook (want).
The hope is that eventually you’ll look forward to calling three clients or
doing ten burpees because it means you get to read the latest sports news or
check Facebook. Doing the thing you need to do means you get to do the
thing you want to do.
We began this chapter by discussing supernormal stimuli, which are
heightened versions of reality that increase our desire to take action.
Temptation bundling is one way to create a heightened version of any habit
by connecting it with something you already want. Engineering a truly
irresistible habit is a hard task, but this simple strategy can be employed to
make nearly any habit more attractive than it would be otherwise.
Chapter Summary
The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become
habit-forming.
Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so
does our motivation to act.
It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets
us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the
dopamine spike.
Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive.
The strategy is to pair an action you want to do with an action you
need to do.
I
9
The Role of Family and Friends in
Shaping Your Habits
N 1965
, a Hungarian man named Laszlo Polgar wrote a series of strange
letters to a woman named Klara.
Laszlo was a firm believer in hard work. In fact, it was all he believed in:
he completely rejected the idea of innate talent. He claimed that with
deliberate practice and the development of good habits, a child could
become a genius in any field. His mantra was “A genius is not born, but is
educated and trained.”
Laszlo believed in this idea so strongly that he wanted to test it with his
own children—and he was writing to Klara because he “needed a wife
willing to jump on board.” Klara was a teacher and, although she may not
have been as adamant as Laszlo, she also believed that with proper
instruction, anyone could advance their skills.
Laszlo decided chess would be a suitable field for the experiment, and he
laid out a plan to raise his children to become chess prodigies. The kids
would be home-schooled, a rarity in Hungary at the time. The house would
be filled with chess books and pictures of famous chess players. The
children would play against each other constantly and compete in the best
tournaments they could find. The family would keep a meticulous file
system of the tournament history of every competitor the children faced.
Their lives would be dedicated to chess.
Laszlo successfully courted Klara, and within a few years, the Polgars
were parents to three young girls: Susan, Sofia, and Judit.
Susan, the oldest, began playing chess when she was four years old.
Within six months, she was defeating adults.
Sofia, the middle child, did even better. By fourteen, she was a world
champion, and a few years later, she became a grandmaster.
Judit, the youngest, was the best of all. By age five, she could beat her
father. At twelve, she was the youngest player ever listed among the top one
hundred chess players in the world. At fifteen years and four months old,
she became the youngest grandmaster of all time—younger than Bobby
Fischer, the previous record holder. For twenty-seven years, she was the
number-one-ranked female chess player in the world.
The childhood of the Polgar sisters was atypical, to say the least. And
yet, if you ask them about it, they claim their lifestyle was attractive, even
enjoyable. In interviews, the sisters talk about their childhood as
entertaining rather than grueling. They loved playing chess. They couldn’t
get enough of it. Once, Laszlo reportedly found Sofia playing chess in the
bathroom in the middle of the night. Encouraging her to go back to sleep,
he said, “Sofia, leave the pieces alone!” To which she replied, “Daddy, they
won’t leave me alone!”
The Polgar sisters grew up in a culture that prioritized chess above all
else—praised them for it, rewarded them for it. In their world, an obsession
with chess was normal. And as we are about to see, whatever habits are
normal in your culture are among the most attractive behaviors you’ll find.
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