HABIT, HABITUATION. — A stable quality by which an agent, indifferent to acting according to different orientations, acquires facility and readiness to act in one direction or another. Thus, for example, when it is said that a person has become accustomed to a particular diet, a specific climate, etc., this means that, thanks to past experience, he or she can now tolerate that food or climate easily and without further effort.
SUMMARY:
1. Psychology
2. Physiology
3. Ethics
4. Pedagogy
5. Moral theology.Habit, called ἔξις by the Greeks and habitus by the Scholastics, is more than a simple disposition (διάθεσις); whereas disposition is in itself unstable (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 49, a. 1), habit, on the other hand, is a stable quality, so that Aristotle, in De memoria, calls it a second nature, ὥσπερ γὰρ ψῶσις ἠδὴ τὸ ἔθος, and Cicero, in
De finibus, asserts that «consuetudine quasi alteram quandam naturam effici». The fundamental division of habits distinguishes them into entitative and operative habits. An entitative habit is commonly defined as a «qualitas stabilis secundum quam subiectum bene vel male se habet in seipso»: health and illness would be examples; an operative habit, instead, modifies powers in various ways with respect to their manner of acting. Operative habit is divided into supernatural habit, which transcends the mere possibilities of nature (e.g. grace), and natural habit; the latter may in turn be innate—such, for example, according to St. Thomas, is the habit of the first principles (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae q. 51, a. 1)—or acquired, that is, arising from the repetition of acts. Operative, natural, acquired habit, which alone is considered here, is further subdivided in various ways, especially by modern psychologists, according to the perspective from which they observe II. Thus, one commonly speaks of good and bad, active and passive (Maine de Biran), general and special (Egger), speculative and practical, intellectual and volitional, moral, religious, professional habits, and so forth.
Habit may be studied from the standpoint of psychology, physiology, ethics, pedagogy, and moral theology.
5. PSYCHOLOGY
a) The subject of habit. — Authors debate whether animals are capable of acquiring operative habits. The negative opinion is maintained not only by proponents of Cartesian mechanism, which denies all animal psychism, but also by many Scholastics. In general, animals are credited only with the possibility of forming a custom of acting in a particular way, which is regarded either as the fruit of a spontaneous perfection of their faculties or as the result of training by human beings. In any case, as we shall immediately note, the question is connected with the more or less restricted meaning in which habit is understood.As regards the possibility of human beings acquiring operative customs, it is appropriate to begin with a guiding principle. Since habit modifies a power, it necessarily presupposes a certain pliability in the faculties that it almost reshapes. Therefore, only powers possessing a certain indifference are capable of habit in the strict sense (cf. Scotus, Opus Oxon., II, d. 3, q. 10, n. 18). For this reason, the Scholastics concluded that vegetative and sensitive powers do not acquire habits. Peillaube and Chevalier think otherwise, but they understand habit in a much broader sense than that commonly accepted by the Scholastics. Indeed, if by habit one means any permanent modification, not only psychological but also physiological, which establishes in the principles of organic activity a constant inclination toward a given action or series of actions, there is nothing to prevent extending the possibility of habit to all vital activities, including sensitive and vegetative activities. This is particularly true in human beings, in whom the development of organic life, and especially of sensitive life, is not entirely subject to the necessity of instinct but is partly dependent on the free determinations of the will.
It is in the will and the intellect, the higher principles of human spiritual activity, that habits find their preferred field of formation and development. Once freedom is admitted, it follows that all virtues and vices—which by definition are good or bad operative habits—are constituted through the determination of, or at least under the influence of, the will. When the will conforms to a value judgment, this very fact creates a tendency to return to the same judgment; and if this conformity of the will occurs frequently in relation to the same object, a habit arises. The intellect, moreover, possessing not only the capacity but also the indifference required for every kind of knowledge, acquires facility and readiness, through habit alone, in the particular fields in which it is especially exercised. Habit explains the common expressions “to have a mentality” and “to have an individual vision of the world and of things”; it likewise explains every specialization. Naturally, in this acquisition of habits, the intellect, like the other faculties, undergoes the influence of the will, which is thus the cause not only of its own habits but also of those belonging to the other faculties.
b) The three vital phases of habit. — Psychologically, three stages may be distinguished in the life-course of a habit: its formation, its development, and its cessation. Habits are formed through the operation of the law of the revival of psychic states. “Past psychic states have a tendency to reproduce themselves, and they do in fact reproduce themselves to the extent that this tendency toward revival combines with the tendencies corresponding to the present state of consciousness” (Janet). Rather than investigating the psychological mechanism that leads to the repetition of acts and consequently to the acquisition of customs, Scholasticism affirms the experiential fact of the enormous importance of repetition. Modern psychology, for its part, has emphasized another effect of repetition, namely, the achievement of uniformity and mechanical execution, which is especially important when habit involves the fusion of physical and psychic elements (Baudin). Nevertheless, even an isolated act, as St. Thomas asserts, may, if sufficiently intense, establish a habit. It must also be borne in mind that the formation of habits often, if not always, testifies to a pre-existing aptitude, frequently hereditary; if this is absent, the effects ordinarily produced by operative habits will not be fully attained, especially the feeling of pleasure that accompanies the action. Given the greater recency and pliability of human beings during the developmental period, it must be inferred—and experience confirms this—that this stage is the most suitable for the formation of habits.
The laws governing learning apply in part to the strengthening of habit, so that the first repetitions have the greatest consolidating value; this value gradually diminishes until a kind of saturation is established, producing uniformity and making any further improvement in acting impossible. Among the psychic factors whose influence is evident in the consolidation of habits, attention, constancy, and the tension of the will are important (De Sanctis, Ferrari); above them all, in efficacy, stands interest, because it constitutes the motive force that sustains them. Interest is considered here in an extremely general meaning and scope, so that, when analyzing the establishment of any custom, we will always find its innermost reason in the satisfaction of an interest belonging to the subject. Physiological conditions play a considerable role as factors in the development of habits exercised through the senses. Through repetition, the resistance of the organism is gradually overcome and a more perfect coordination of movements is achieved, which results in a relative physiological automatism.
The diminution or cessation of any of these physical and psychic conditions, and the formation of contrary habits, cause the relaxation of the h. (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃ, q.53, a.3). When the repetition of acts ceases, the functional adaptation produced by the reiteration of the same actions is weakened, and likewise the general tendencies and needs of h. become ever less tyrannical. From the pedagogical point of view, the influence of the will must not be underestimated in this regard, since it can suddenly break deeply rooted habits, as is demonstrated by sudden and enduring conversions. As a general law, however, the following principle may be stated and accepted:
the weakening or exhaustion of a h. is inversely proportional to its vitality and duration, so that the more recent and less dominant habits are also more easily overcome. Other things being equal, the habits of childhood survive those of mature age. Modern medicine has established an entire therapeutics for treating habits harmful to health, such as alcoholism, tobacco addiction, morphinomania, and the like. We shall mention only those treatments that enjoy the widest acceptance, namely hypnotism, suggestion, and psychoanalysis.
c) Effects of h. — S. Tommaso (Quaest. disp. de virtut. in communi, q. unica, a. 1, c), in treating of the necessity of habits, summarizes their effects as follows: 1) through them uniformity in action is attained; 2) h. produces a perfect and efficient action; 3) this action will be performed with delight.
Modern authors, especially psychologists, have dealt extensively with the effects of h., and it is interesting to observe how its importance is increasingly emphasized. Maher asserts that character is the sum of all moral habits, and it is certain that individual personality is shaped and manifests itself above all through customary acts. Moreover, in psychic life h. is an eminent factor of conservation and progress. Without it we would be incapable of learning in a stable manner, whereas through it every action survives within us in the form of a tendency, so that the past is contained in the present. This same conserving action is also an instrument of progress. Voluntary activity, once acts become habitual, remains free to direct itself toward other objects, since attention has by then become largely superfluous. It is true that stability and facility mechanize human action to some extent, because they entail a diminution of consciousness, but they do not thereby eliminate psychological awareness and hence voluntariness. Besides, the defect is amply compensated by the rapidity and precision that accompany h.
The effects of h. are also found in moral and social life, in the same sense of conservation and progress (Peillaube). Every virtuous act leaves a trace of virtue which, by the law of association, becomes a facility for its repetition. Logically, this is also true of evil acts, but not with the same intensity, because grace and the natural and positive laws constitute a barrier against the inclinations and passions of nature. Since the community is nothing other than a multiplication of individuals, the contribution of h. to the formation of social custom is natural. As a conserving agent, by the simple law of inertia it maintains the limits of order and both familial and national characteristics; hence it is not wrong to say that a people is guided at least as much by its dead as by its living. The progressive effect of habits in social life, moreover, is determined by the fact that ideas, once acquired and become common property, permit a forward movement toward new conquests.
6. PHYSIOLOGY
The constant repetition of acts, as has already been noted, deposits and crystallizes within us, both with regard to our psychological consciousness and to our physical organism, a greater facility and even the need to perform the act in question again. In this way a disposition develops within us which ultimately becomes stable, almost becoming identified with our nature in the form of h. Just as acts of cognition remain our possession in the form of memories in imagination and memory, whileon the other hand, by virtue of the subject’s particular mixed nature, they leave enduring traces in the organs constituting our nervous system, especially the encephalic organs (v. MEMORIA), so it is with all our actions, from the most insignificant or rare to those most important even for our relational life, particularly when they are frequently repeated: “action can fix our energy in h.” (G. Payot, op. cit., p. 167).
The question of h. and habit must be studied not only from the standpoint of psychology, but also from that of medicine (biology, neurophysiology, neuropathology).
Indeed, a deeper understanding of the problem and mechanism of the phenomenon in question can be attained only by studying the organization and function of the nervous system, especially the central nervous system. Given the principle that “when soul and body are united, the relations between them are not extrinsic and superficial, but intimate and profound” (A. Zacchi, op. cit., I, p. 441), already a priori we must admit in the psychological phenomenon of h. and habit a direct, intrinsic instrumental participation of the physical organism, particularly of the nervous system. And, in fact, physiology and clinical observation show us the reality of this psychosomatic correlation, demonstrating the existence of particular cortical and subcortical zones in which it is possible to localize the sensorimotor mechanism of many instinctive or non-instinctive “symbolic acts” that have become automatic through continuous repetition (correlation between thought or speech and gesture; particular investigative or defensive attitudes; walking; writing; manual skills, etc.). The progressive facilitation that develops in relation to the habitual nature of acts and that may reach a genuine automatism is connected precisely with the myelination of nerve fibers, the alignment of neurons in synergistic groups, the association of centers into coordinated complexes, and the transfer of functions from the cerebral cortex to the subcortical regions (v. EXTRAPIRAMIDALE, SISTEMA, SISTEMA). Among this class of phenomena, one need only consider walking, acquired with such difficulty at the beginning of our relational life through the constant repetition of certain attitudes and acts, at first supported and guided by the will, then gradually passing into the domain of subconsciousness and automaticity; the becoming automatic and habitual of certain particular professional skills acquired through the manual work of the finest crafts; and the marvelous automatism of a pianist’s finger movements, which may enable him to play the most difficult pieces while conversing with those near him.
We may therefore admit that every form of habitual training, from the lower organic levels to the higher ones in the sphere of our psychological activities, is always a phenomenon of a mixed, physio-psychological nature, as observation of their alteration or even disappearance in relation to organic or functional damage to the nervous system (intoxication, fatigue, etc.), or in relation to particular negative emotional states of the individual (pain, despair, fear, etc.), demonstrates to us. (v. PASSIONE).
7. ETHICS
The principle stated above, that habit, even if it attenuates the freedom of the human act, does not in itself remove it, has important implications in the ethical sphere, chiefly with regard to the degree of imputability, and hence of merit or demerit, inherent in actions performed under the influence of a good or bad habit. Normally, therefore, moral habit does not attain a character of automatism so strong as to compromise, together with freedom, the immediate essential morality of the act; nevertheless, it is certain that, to a greater or lesser degree, it diminishes II. The ethical value of the act must then be judged on the basis of the principle of mediate morality, dependent upon indirect and causal voluntariness.It is certain that a habit acquired unconsciously—and the same must be said of every purely natural and involuntary psycho-physiological disposition—does not modify, either positively or negatively, the present morality of the act, which will have the ethical value conferred upon it by the degree of awareness and freedom with which it is actually performed. An unconscious and involuntary habit (that is, one may be such only with regard to the moral character of its object), so long as it remains such, may be regarded, in relation to the human act and insofar as it influences it, in the same way as inculpable ignorance. The matter must be understood quite differently in the case of a habit acquired with full consciousness (as regards its moral character) and deliberately. Then the consequences of that habit are also, in a certain sense, foreseen and willed, at least in their cause: the ethical value invested in the emergence and formation of the habit is thus reflected upon all the acts on which the habit itself will exert its influence or authority. In the case of a good habit (virtue), often acquired through intense and prolonged moral effort, the acts, subsequently having become spontaneous and almost natural, will possess the same value, the same human dignity, and the same merit that accompanied the laborious formation of the habit. Similarly, in the case of a bad habit (vice), the acts deriving from it will bear the same full responsibility as the habit, until a free act of the will intervenes that effectively repudiates the habit itself through a moral reorientation: effectively, that is, through a sincere rejection by the mind together with the practical use of the means required for the gradual destruction of the habit. When this action of the will intervenes, the bond of responsibility that linked the act to the habit is broken, and its ethical value will then be determined solely by the degree of awareness and deliberation with which it is actually performed. In practice, it need hardly be pointed out that, beyond the two extreme cases analyzed, the responsibility of habits and hence of the acts deriving from them admits of infinitely many degrees, according to the variation and interweaving of the numerous factors that contribute to it besides free will, such as temperament, education, the individual’s degree of culture, and the countless other circumstances of the educational and social environment.
With regard to moral life, it must finally be noted that bad habits, when they are not resisted, exercise, in the long run, a strongly negative influence upon the very rectitude of the moral conscience (v. COSCIENZA). By virtue of the bond that unites the spiritual life of man, deviations in the ethical sphere, once fixed through long-standing habits, ultimately affect practical reason, bringing about the gradual obscuring, sometimes even to the point of extinction, at least partial, of the moral conscience (v. VIRTÙ; VIZI; VOLONTÀ).
8. PEDAGOGY
The preceding psychological and physiological observations suggest the most useful applications in the field of pedagogy. We shall restrict them to the following points: a) The educator’s first duty is to enrich his pupils with a set of habits that are useful for life. The child and the young person may gradually acquire particular habits of physical life (the practice of hygienic rules, restraint in gluttony, a sense of personal propriety, rules of etiquette); of intellectual life (attention, reflection, application to study); and of volitional and moral life (the practice of duty, courage in overcoming difficulties, boldness, victory over inertia). b) It must be borne in mind that the child possesses a very great capacity for adaptation, by virtue of which he acquires habits with the greatest ease; he is extremely plastic material. Hence habits acquired in childhood have stronger and more lasting roots. This calls for vigilance, so that bad or disorderly habits are not acquired, since they will be difficult to eradicate in adulthood; and for care that many good and useful habits be acquired. c) Habits must gradually be transformed into conscious acts, so that the child and the young person may increasingly understand that they must maintain them, and may increasingly know and appreciate their moral and formative value. d) No exception should be tolerated before the habit is firmly rooted; in other words, the process of forming the habit must be constant: if a ball of thread in the making falls to the ground, it loses far more turns of thread than are made within the same period of time. e) With the proviso, however, that one must not become a slave to habit, and must know how to free oneself from it whenever there is a suitable reason or it becomes excessive. The habit of thrift may degenerate into avarice; the habit of order in our actions may make us discourteous when we ought to interrupt or reverse that order because of unforeseen incidents. f) Always seize the first opportunity that presents itself to act in accordance with the decision taken. Hesitation and procrastination make the transition to action increasingly difficult. g) Form in children the habit of voluntary effort. No day should pass without some voluntary sacrifice imposed by oneself: not an extraordinary sacrifice; overcoming an annoyance is sufficient; this is enough to keep the inhibitory and volitional powers trained to resist the passions. Indeed, this is precisely the true Christian spirit: « vincere se stessi ». h) No habit is an end point, but rather a starting point for acquiring new habits. Hence the need to make as many as possible of our habitual acts increasingly spontaneous. In this way the higher energies of our mind will become increasingly free and will more easily succeed in carrying out their task.9. MORAL THEOLOGY
Questions concerning habit also interest moral theology, particularly in penance (v.). Indeed, it is evident that habitual sin, and still more relapse into habitual sin (for almost two centuries moral theologians have thus distinguished the habitual sinner from the relapsed sinner), determine a particular state in the penitent, which requires special conditions for the fruitful administration of the sacrament.With regard to the absolution of habitual sinners, moral theologians generally affirm: “They may be absolved whenever they show themselves truly and sincerely disposed to employ the means necessary to overcome their habit.” Among these means, some are general, such as prayer, meditation, remembrance of God’s presence, avoidance of occasions, and frequent use of the sacraments; others are particular, namely, those directly opposed to the habit. One who refuses to employ the means necessary for correcting himself cannot ordinarily be absolved, since he is ill-disposed insofar as he retains an attachment to his own evil habit. But if the refusal concerns only certain means suggested to him, which he does not consider necessary, while he is ready to resort to others, he would not thereby cease to be properly disposed; he could be absolved and left for a certain period in good faith, even if, in the confessor’s judgment, these other means appeared less effective.
Is the penitent obliged to confess his evil habits? Among the propositions condemned by Innocent XI in the decree of 2 March 1679, the 58th states: Non tenemur confessorio interroganti fateri peccati alicuius consuetudinem; therefore, if the penitent is specifically questioned by the confessor about his habit, he must answer sincerely; apart from this case, it does not seem that the penitent must accuse himself of II. Habit may indeed be a circumstance that aggravates the sin, but it does not alter its species; now, according to the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, chap. V and can. 7), one is obliged to confess only the number and species of mortal sins (v. RECIDIVITÀ).