Our habits bias us

People’s habits are hard to change

We’re wired to avoid trying new things. When we’re presented with information that opposes what we already do or believe, our natural reaction is to deny the new information rather than change our behavior or belief. Our brain often ignores the competing information. In fact, we actively look for information that confirms our beliefs and don’t look for information that opposes our beliefs. This is why we have partisan bias in politics, despite the abundance of information on both sides.

We all have learned behaviors and perceptions that we repeat and reinforce. To have people try your product often involves breaking an existing habit—buy a different brand, shop in a different store, visit a different website. Recent research has shown that it takes about 5 days of daily repeated action for people to form a new habit. Without daily repetition, it can take from 18 to over 250 days depending on how complex the new behavior is.⁷ The hard part is motivating people to start doing something new in the first place.