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Acquiring habits...habit

2- Acquiring habits

What are the factors affecting the acquisition of habits?
Philosophers have researched these factors extensively theoretically. Some of them said that repetition is necessary, some of them denied its necessity, some of them said the necessity of will, and some of them denied it. Let us now discuss some of these theoretical opinions:

A - Theoretical opinions

Repeat function.
Aristotle used to say: Habit is the daughter of repetition. Repetition, then, is an essential factor in forming a habit, because matter is rarely formed in one time, and active habits, such as writing, playing musical instruments, or striking a typewriter, and vital habits, such as the stomach getting used to a specific regime, and the body getting used to a hot, cold, or moderate region, They all require repetition, but the repetition required by vital habits is not true repetition, but rather an extension of the effect. Some scholars have noted, and some scholars have noted, that the habit does not require repeating an action several times, but rather it may have been acquired from the first time. Therefore, repetition is not necessary to acquire a habit, but rather it is necessary to strengthen it, facilitate it, and control it. From what Leibniz said: Every action is the beginning of a habit, because if the first action does not leave an impact on your soul, the habit will not be formed, even if you repeat the action a hundred times, and the basis of a habit is the first change. The deeper this change is, the more established the habit is. A single change that the soul accepts with attention, interest and determination, or that occurs accompanied by great pleasure, may be sufficient to form a habit that will last as long as one lives. An example of this is that some people memorize a piece of poetry after reading it once, and some of them master the use of some instruments, or a game after the first time. So repetition is not the reason for the formation of a habit, but rather one of its results, and habit, as some of them said, is nothing but the tendency to repetition. Scientists have responded to this opinion of Leibniz and said that it is a purely theoretical opinion that does not match reality. We will discuss this matter shortly in light of the experimental investigations.

Function of mind and will.
One of the theoretical issues raised by some scholars on the subject is the issue of mind and will.
They said that the mind, will, and attention affect the acquisition of active habits, because these habits are specific to humans. As for passive habits, such as vital habits, for example, mental activity has no effect in their acquisition. But this statement is not based on a correct scientific basis: because mental activity has an effect on all human habits, whether psychological, motor, or vital. The evidence for this is that Mithridates infuse their bodies with their will, carrying large amounts of poison, and that the animal itself has mental actions that affect the acquisition of some motor habits. However, many of our motor habits, or purely psychological ones, are written out of pure emotion, like our social materials that cause us to repeat some single pattern, and make us perform the same movements every day at certain times, whether that is at home or outside, and like our professional habits that change our thoughts, It changes our morals, and in most cases makes us subject to limited patterns of action in which there is no trace of reason or freedom of will.

If it is said: It is necessary to acknowledge the influence of the mind and will in acquiring a habit, we say that this influence may be external, and if it follows the goal, it follows it accidentally without changing its essence, and this will become clear to us after reviewing the results of the experimental investigations.

B - Experimental investigations

Can we strip the habit of the complex factors that join it? Can we study it in its pure simple state?

Psychologists and physicists have researched this matter when they talk about animals. They first showed us that stripping habit of will and reason in animals is easier than it is in humans. Then they investigated, secondly, the abstraction of habit from these complex factors in man. They studied some of his mechanical habits, analyzed them, and distinguished between what is due to the mind, and what is due to the ordeal mechanism.

It is the habit of animals.
- The American scientist Thorndike invented the wandering method to study animals, and then he tried this method later on some animal species. It includes the following experiences:

Put an animal in front of a wilderness and then push it to cross it. You will find it taking different paths, so it strays from the path leading to the goal first, then in the end it reaches the intended goal, but without intention (Figure 62).

(A) The turtle method after repeating the exercises five times

(B) The turtle method after repeating the exercises fifty times

(Figure 62) The Turtle Way, based on Torndike.

Scientists have carried out other experiments to find out the intelligence of animals, their ability to learn, and how they learn. They used monkeys, white mice, dogs, cats, and others, to open special locked boxes with cracks to reach food placed in an enchanted house (Figure 63).

(Figure - 63)
The box opens when the animal pulls the latch rope.

These experiments have proven that repetition leads to a gradual decrease in frequency, so the action continues to be perfected until it becomes precise and precise. Then the animal stops progressing, and this period is known as the stagnation period. The scientists measured the duration of acquisition of the action and the number of incorrect exercises, so they set the habit to be a graphic error such as the line we indicated in Figure (64), which indicates how habits are acquired by the Japanese mouse.

( a )
(Figure 64)
Yerkes experiments
Quoted from (Byron)
(A) The curve indicating the Japanese mouse’s acquisition of the habit of distinguishing between black and white

( B )
(b) The curve indicating that twenty Japanese mice acquired the habit of crossing the maze

It is a human habit.
Scientists have carried out some experiments to demonstrate how habits are formed in humans. They have proven that a person may acquire habits without his inclination or will having any effect on them. Like learning to type on a typewriter to earn a living, not out of inclination or desire, or like memorizing meaningless passages, or like reading upside down or reversed writing. The graphic line drawn in Figure (65) indicates acquiring the habit of writing on a typewriter, by practicing it for half an hour every day during (65) days (Experiments of the American scientist Swift) (E. J. Swift). Since 1885, Abenfus invented a new method for memorizing syllables, which he called the method of economics. It is suitable for calculating how long the effect will remain in the soul after learning. The Abenfus method includes the following experiment: a person reads a sentence of syllables several times in order to memorize them. Without error or hesitation, he counts the number of times he needs to memorize them, then neglects these passages for a period of time and forgets them. The person is then asked to read them again until he memorizes them. If he memorizes them as before, he counts the number of times he needs them in his second memorization. The difference between the number of first times and the second times is the amount of economy, which is identical to the amount of impact that kept the first learning in the soul.

On the axis, indicate the number of days, and on the order axis, the number of seconds necessary to print one hundred words. The curve then indicates the speed gained. If the trainee abstains from work for 84 days, then returns to it, he will retain some of the effects of the first training, and then rise to a higher level.

(Figure (65)) The graph indicating learning automatic writing.