The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

When the MIT researchers started working on habits in the 1990s—at about the same time that Eugene came down with his fever—they were curious about a nub of neurological tissue known as the basal ganglia. One spring day, Eugene was watching television when he suddenly shouted. His job was to build mathematical models that could crawl through data and determine which households contained kids and which were dedicated bachelors; which shoppers loved the outdoors and who was more interested in ice cream and romance novels. Once he finished, he finally had an answer as to why some students went to Mississippi, and others stayed home: because of social habits—or more specifically, because of the power of strong and weak ties working in tandem.