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If you look back at your life, does the person you are seem pretty much the same — older, and maybe a little wiser — or do you see significant change over the years?

It is a truism — at least in Western cultures — that people don’t change, or at least not that much. It’s quite a depressing idea. It tells us that if you have a grumpy disposition, you’re likely to stay that way.

Many people believe that personalities are a fixed set of unchanging traits. Think of the expression: “a leopard doesn’t change his spots.” This is meant to warn us that someone who treated us badly is likely to do so again. But here’s the question — what if you’re the person who needs to change?

Neurological research has also shown that what we think of as well-thought out decisions are often nothing more than habits. You may think that you shower first thing in the morning as this is the smartest way to start the day, but it is habit that compels you to do this morning after morning. This is also true of the way we react and behave.

Let’s say you are a person who gets easily annoyed. Your annoyance causes you to snap at people, including your partner. Now, if you have ever had someone take out their bad mood on you, you’ll know it is very unpleasant. In fact, it’s pretty annoying! It’s hardly a revelation to say that this can cause problems in a relationship. It’s grievances like this that can cause committed relationships to fall apart, and a constant bad temper can drive a loved one away.

Let’s say you and your partner are heading out for a romantic dinner. The traffic is busy, and you seem to be hitting all the red lights. When you finally arrive at the restaurant, there’s no parking. This means you’ll need to find parking on the street and walk a few blocks in the rain. You’re fuming by the time you find a spot, and complaining to your partner.

Your partner is also annoyed — but not about the traffic or parking. Nope, your partner is annoyed with you. He or she was looking forward to a nice evening out, and your attitude has ruined it. The two of you get into an argument, and what should have been a romantic evening is now a disaster.

You might think that a short-temper is just who you are, but reacting with annoyance is nothing more than habit — and habits can be changed.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, started studying the neurological basis for habit formation in 1990 and concentrated their efforts on a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. They had noticed that animals with injuries to this part of the brain developed problems learning new tasks and theorised that the basal ganglia was important for habit formation. The scientists found that the brain turns a sequence of actions into an automatic routine or habit by a process they call “chunking” and that we rely on a behavioural chunks every day. These can be simple. For example, knowing how to get dressed or brush your teeth is a behavioural chunk. They can also be more complex – such as knowing how to drive  a car. By developing behavioural chunks we cut out mental effort, and conserve our mental energy for more important tasks.

Behavioural chucks operate in a three part habit loop. First, there is the cue – the trigger that tells your brain to switch into automatic mode and to do something. That’s followed by the routine. The routine can be physical, mental or emotional. Finally, there is the reward. This tells your brain whether or not a loop is worth remembering. Here’s an example: you come after work. The first thing you do is switch on the kettle. You make a cup of tea, kick off your shoes and turn on the television. Coming through the door is the cue; your actions are the routine; and the feeling of relaxation at the end of the day is the reward.

To develop a healthy new habit, you need a cue, and a clearly defined reward. Many people smoke after eating. Finishing their food is the cue, smoking is the routine and nicotine is the reward. You can change this habit loop by tinkering with the cue. Let’s say you decide to walk after dinner. After a while, your empty plate is your cue that it is time for a walk, not a cigarette.

Habits create neurological cravings. This is why they can be so hard to break. But they can be overcome once you recognise what cravings are powering them. You can also use this to create new habits. You create a cue, and set a reward, and once you start craving the reward, a new habit is formed.

The easiest way to develop new habits, or get rid of old ones, is to keep the cue and reward but change the routine. This is the golden rule of habit change. If the cue and reward are familiar, changing a routine is easier. For example, instead of coming in the door being your cue to make a cup of tea and watch television, you use it as the cue to walk your dog. Initially this will not be as relaxing as your old routine but after a while it will be, as this becomes your relaxation time. The process itself is easy, but accomplishing new behaviours can take time. You need to keep at it! 

An Irish election has just past, and an American election is looming, but have you ever considered how exactly you decide who to vote for?

Now, presumably you’ll say that you choose a candidate based on his or her platform, promises, political party affiliation and other such rational criteria. However that is not the whole story. There may be many reasons why we choose candidate A over candidate B, but not all of these are a part of the conscious decision-making process.

For one thing, most of what you know about political candidates you learn in the media. If a political candidate was previously elected in your area, you may have met them in person or had dealings with them yourself. If so, that will make a big impact on your decision. But what if that candidate is not affiliated with the party that is tipped to win? Most voters will not have personally met the taoiseach, the prime minister or president of their country. Instead we watch debates on television, read analyses in the newspapers and chat to our friends about the election on social media. All of these present us with information we use to make decision before voting.

The Harmony Institute in the USA is a non-profit research institute that specialises in measuring the impact of media on social issues, such as voting. They observe voters’ neural responses as they watch excerpts from the presidential debates held within each party. After viewing a live debate excerpt, voters are asked which candidate they prefer, if they would like to support that candidate by a donation, a ‘Like’ on Facebook, or a one-time vote.

The aim of this research is to find the neural signal that predicts a voter’s choice. At the moment science is not able to tell that, but the results from the Harmony Institute are fascinating. For example, during a political debate there are moments of time when the majority of voters listen carefully to what candidates are saying, and moments when voters tune. This research suggests that certain issues compel voters to listen, while others cause them to disengage — even though we know we could be missing information that could cement our voting decision or get us to change our minds.

Although science cannot tell where and when a decision happens —  in fact it may not even be possible to signal out the point when a person decides between A or B — knowing that voters have different neurological responses to what a politician says is a huge leap forward in our understanding of the decision-making process.

For a number of years, scientists have studied brain and genetic abnormalities alongside crime. This work has produced some exciting finding. We now know that certain genetic variations, such as monoamine oxidase, are linked to violent behaviour. The question is can your brain make you commit crime?

The short answer is no. It is important to remember that correlation and causation are not the same thing. If every violent criminal had a particular brain abnormality, you’d have 100 percent linkage between the behaviour and this brain variant, and the correlation would certainly be worth investigating. It still wouldn’t be causation unless this abnormality was never present in non-violent people too.

Despite this, the findings of neurological science are increasingly being used in the American justice system. Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, studied over 10,000 court cases and found that more and more lawyers are using the findings of neuroscience and behavioural genetics to explain behaviour. This is troubling. First off, how neurobiology affects behaviour is as simple as X causes Y; secondly, a great number of neuroscientific studies were used in ways well outside accepted academic or scientific parameters.

Although neurological factors certainly do prompt certain behaviours, Farahany found that neurobiological findings are not likely to be accepted by the courts as evidence of guilt or innocence. The justice system works on the assumption that all behaviour, criminal or not, is the result of voluntary and self-directed action. Claiming you killed someone in a bar fight because you’d bumped your head a few days earlier is unlikely to get anyone off.

One way it has been used was to claim a defendant was incompetent to stand trail; a second is as an argument that a defendant was not competent to confess or understand his or her rights. Another way neuroscience has been used is to make claims for lenient sentencing or on appeal, such as by claiming that defence lawyers failed to amount an effective defence because they didn’t investigate a client’s neurobiology. So far the courts have not been swayed — in 70 to 80 percent of cases where this was used, defendants were unsuccessful upon appeal.

This is probably a relief to scientists whose work has been used in ways never intended and not warranted. Neurobiology is an excellent tool for explaining the behaviour of people — but not the individual person. Yes, our brains may cause us to be more likely to do one thing instead of another, but human beings, and neuroscience, are far more complex than that.

Imagine this scenario: You are driving to work and your car stalls at the red light. Behind you impatient drivers start honking. How do you feel?

Here’s another one: You’re giving a presentation at work, and Joe from accounts disputes your figures. You’ve gone over them carefully, but he’s adamant. Later you double-check the numbers and you were right all along, but it hardly matters since your presentation was not the success you’d hoped. Ever time someone mentions your presentation or Joe, how do you react?

Here’s a third: You comment on an article online. Someone reacts to your comment, telling you you’re wrong, that you don’t understand the topic, and furthermore, you’re a nincompoop with cotton wool for brains — although given it’s the Internet, that’s probably not the phrase they used. You decide to respond — but what do you say?

In all of these, people have decided — rightly or not — that you are in the wrong. And if there is one thing that makes most of us act in ways that seem unrecognisable to others, it’s conflict. Conflict can last for years — consider bitter divorce disputes, family rivalries or even competition between companies working in the same field.

There seems to be a simple — although complex — reason why: self-esteem.

Self-esteem is one of the most powerful motivators for conflict. We like to think well of ourselves, and to believe that despite our flaws, we are good, smart and valuable people. More than that, we want other people to think so too. When someone disagrees with us, calls us stupid, or tells us we are wrong, this humiliation knocks our self-esteem and we are motivated to restore it.

Neurological evidence suggests that self-esteem is not just a psychological phenomenon, but a neurological one too. Humiliation is “social pain” and activates the same circuits of the brain as physical pain. So if someone verbally attacks you, you process this the same way you would as if you had been slapped.

Now here’s another scenario: You’re at home, and you and your partner have a disagreement. You are still smarting from Joe earlier — this is not your best day — and so you start shouting. Afterwards, things have calmed down but neither of you has made the first move to repair the damage. Now how do you feel? Probably ashamed of shouting, and you may realise that you are taking your work frustrations out on someone who doesn’t deserve it.

You almost definitely should say “sorry.” Unfortunately, Elton John was right — sorry seems to be the hardest word! Apologising is admitting you were wrong, and our brains react to this the same way it would to physical pain.

When we are physically attacked, the “fight or flight” instinct kicks in. This is governed by the amygdala, which controls instinctive responses. The “fight or flight” reflex is obviously quite useful — it enables us to act swiftly when we are in danger — but it can also be activated by perceived attacks on our self-esteem. When the amygdala takes over, brain signals are diverted from the cortex, which is the thinking and reasoning part of the brain. This prevents us from acting logically — instead we go into defence mode.

This is why we don’t like to be accused of being wrong. But as human beings we can learn to recognise our instinctive reactions and modify our behaviour. If you are having a disagreement, the smartest thing you can do is step back, take three deep breaths and try and see things from the other person’s perspective. It’s not easy, but it is certainly worth it.