Definition, Examples, & Why It Occurs

You have just experienced habituation. The loud and surprising sound initially got your attention and alerted you to the possibility of danger. When it became clear that you weren’t in any danger, your brain determined that it could safely ignore the sound and focus your attention and cognitive resources on other things. 

In this article, we’ll define habituation and review some psychological principles of habituation. We’ll also discuss how habituation may impact your life and ways that you may be able to overcome some of the undesirable effects of habituation.
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Broadly, learning can be defined as any change in behavior that happens after a specific experience. The category of behavioral changes that qualify as learning is vast. Incredibly complex, exclusively human accomplishments like learning how to drive a car, bake a cake, perform surgery, or integrate a differential equation are all examples of learning. Learning can also cover much simpler behavioral changes. 

Habituation has been called the simplest form of learning (Schmid et al., 2015) and is present in many species. Even single-celled organisms are capable of habituation (Eisentstein et al., 1982). The simplicity of habituation, its ubiquity across species, and its relatively straightforward neural underpinnings mean that it is often studied in model species by scientists interested in the neuroscience of learning and memory (Kandel, 2012).

Almost any response or behavior may become habituated. The first time you’re exposed to something intense or surprising you may respond by jumping, calling out in surprise, exploring the environment, or simply looking around. Emotions may also become habituated. You may feel less afraid of your neighbor’s Halloween decorations as October progresses or may feel less annoyed by your new officemate’s loud chewing as time goes on. 

The following clips show some examples of habituation in people and animals. The first two show habituation of a response that occurs after a surprising and potentially danger-signaling stimulus. The last video demonstrates that habituation can also occur to something that doesn’t signal the potential for danger but that is merely interesting.

Although scientists and philosophers have been writing about the phenomenon of habituation for  centuries (Thompson, 2009), it wasn’t formally defined until 1966 (Thompson & Spencer, 1966). Psychologists who study habituation have identified ten characteristics that define habituation (Rankin et al., 2009).
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1. Repeated presentations of a stimulus decrease some dimension of the response to that stimulus (i.e., we habituate). The affected dimension may be the frequency, probability, duration, or magnitude of the response. The response may never fully go away but may instead approach some minimum. The first firework of the night may cause you to jump out of your seat. As the fireworks continue, your reactions may get smaller and smaller until you don’t feel at all surprised or startled by the explosions.
2. Spontaneous recovery: the response to the stimulus will recover if the stimulus is absent for a period (i.e., we habituate). If you only see one firework show a year you may find that your startle response is back to its high point for the first firework of the show each year.
3. Potentiation of habituation: Habituation of the response to the stimulus happens faster each time. If you manage to make it to more than one firework show in a single night, you may find that you habituate faster at the second, third, fourth, and subsequent shows.
4. More frequent stimulus presentation will result in faster or more pronounced habituation (and spontaneous recovery). You’ll probably habituate to the sound of the fireworks faster if they are released every second than if they are released every thirty seconds.
5. Habituation will be faster and more pronounced for weaker or less intense stimuli. Strong stimuli may never produce habitation in some cases. You may habituate to the sound of faraway fireworks within a few minutes but may never get used to the sound of fireworks being set off right next to you.
6. Repeated presentation of the stimuli even after you have become fully habituated to it may have some effects that you’ll only be able to detect in other situations. If the fireworks continue even after you’ve become fully habituated, you may find that you don’t have any startle response to the sound of a car backfiring in the parking lot on the way home from the show.
7. Stimulus specificity: Habituation to one stimulus doesn’t mean that habituation will happen to another stimulus. Although you may have habituated to the sound of fireworks, you may not show any habituation to the sound of loudly barking dogs or crying babies.
8. Dishabituation: If a second, intense, stimulus is presented, the habituated response may reappear in response to the originally habituated stimulus. If someone screams right in your ear after you’ve habituated to the fireworks, the next firework may cause you to startle again.
9. Habituation of the dishabituating stimulus: repeated presentation of the new stimulus will reduce its ability to reverse habituation. If the screamer keeps on screaming right in your ear, to the point where it doesn’t surprise you anymore, your startle response to the fireworks may continue to be habituated.
10. Habituation can last for a long time. Habituation of a response may be faster each successive time. If you get a job at an amusement park or other venue where you hear fireworks every night, you may find that your startle response goes away faster and faster each night.

Habituation is very similar to sensory adaptation. Both sensory adaptation and habituation describe a decrease in reactivity to a stimulus after repeated exposure to that stimulus. However, habituation is a behavioral learning effect while sensory adaptation is a physiological effect.

In sensory adaptation, the receptor cells become adapted to a particular level of stimulation (Dalton, 2000). For example, the receptor cells in your nose may adapt to a specific smell, and may no longer respond when they detect that particular aroma. This may be why people don’t tend to notice the smell of their own homes.

Habituation & The Nervous System
In contrast, habituation is a phenomenon of the cells in the nervous system. It is a form of learning, consisting of the brain trying to filter out irrelevant background stimuli in order to allow more attention to be paid to potentially relevant stimuli. For example, imagine that an avid griller moves in next door to you and sets up their grill near your bedroom window. The first time you smell the woodsmoke you may become alarmed, fearing a nearby fire. Repeated exposure to the woodsmoke, without any indication of fire danger, may habituate you to the smell of the smoke to the point that you don’t even notice when your neighbor lights up the grill. It isn’t that the receptor cells in your nose have stopped reacting to smoke – you will still likely notice and perhaps become alarmed if you smell cigarette smoke in your home. Rather, your nervous system has learned that the smell of smoke coming from your neighbor’s grill doesn’t signal danger.

If you hit the lottery jackpot tomorrow, do you think you’d be happier in five years than you are now? The answer seems obvious—of course, you would be! However, research findings don’t support this conclusion—lottery winners don’t tend to be any happier than people who haven’t won the lottery (Brickman et al., 1978). This is despite reporting that they had more financial security, more leisure time, and an easier retirement after winning the lottery.

​Habituation may be at play here—lottery winners may have access to a whole new set of enjoyable experiences, leading to increased happiness and pleasure. However, as they are repeatedly exposed to these new happiness-producing stimuli, their happiness responses may become habituated and the new experiences may no longer increase happiness. People tend to adapt to good and bad events and return to the same baseline level of happiness. Happiness may adapt just like startle responses or exploratory behavior.

According to the Sustainable Happiness Model (Sheldon et al., 2013), happiness is composed of three components: your genetics, the largely stable psychobiological characteristics that you’re born with; your circumstances, the situational characteristics that you find yourself in; and activities, the things that you do in your day-to-day life.  According to this model, activities account for about 40% of a person’s happiness. Changing your activities may be the most straightforward way to change your happiness and prevent habituation of happiness. Research on the sustainability of happiness has found many ways to maintain increased happiness. You may be able to stay happy by intentionally practicing and expressing gratitude (Wood et al., 2010), reflecting on your life through the process of journaling (Burton & King, 2008), or by committing acts of kindness (Curry et al., 2018).

You may also be able to stave off habituation of happiness by taking part in new activities (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2007). Giving yourself new, positive, enjoyable experiences and activities may keep you happier for longer.

When people get married they often experience an increase in their happiness and well-being (Waite and Lehrer 2003). Marriage may increase happiness and well-being by increasing social support, emotional support, intimacy, and companionship. Marriage isn’t necessary for these benefits. Unmarried people in committed, cohabiting relationships show similar increases in happiness and well-being at the start of their committed partnerships (Zimmerman & Easterlin, 2006).

After a “honeymoon period” of about two years, happiness levels tend to return to their pre-marriage levels (Lucas et al., 2003). The increased happiness after getting married or starting a committed relationship appears to be transient.

Want to learn more about habitation? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.​​

• Barbas, D., DesGroseillers, L., Castellucci, V. F., Carew, T. J., & Marinesco, S. (2003). Multiple serotonergic mechanisms contributing to sensitization in aplysia: evidence of diverse serotonin receptor subtypes. Learning & Memory, 10(5), 373-386.
• Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(8), 917.
• Burton, C. M., & King, L. A. (2008). Effects of (very) brief writing on health: The two‐minute miracle. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13(1), 9-14.
• Çevik, M. Ö. (2014). Habituation, sensitization, and Pavlovian conditioning. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 8, 13.
• Curry, O. S., Rowland, L. A., Van Lissa, C. J., Zlotowitz, S., McAlaney, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2018). Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 320-329.
• Dalton, P. (2000). Psychophysical and behavioral characteristics of olfactory adaptation. Chemical senses, 25(4), 487-492.
• Eisenstein, E. M., Brunder, D. G., & Blair, H. J. (1982). Habituation and sensitization in an aneural cell: Some comparative and theoretical considerations. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 6(2), 183-194.
• Glanzman, D. L. (2009). Habituation in Aplysia: the Cheshire cat of neurobiology. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 92(2), 147-154.
• Grover, S., & Helliwell, J. F. (2019). How’s life at home? New evidence on marriage and the set point for happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(2), 373-390.
• Kandel, E. R. (2012). The molecular biology of memory: cAMP, PKA, CRE, CREB-1, CREB-2, and CPEB. Molecular brain, 5(1), 1-12.
• Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2003). Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(3), 527.
• Perusini, J. N., Meyer, E. M., Long, V. A., Rau, V., Nocera, N., Avershal, J., … & Fanselow, M. S. (2016). Induction and expression of fear sensitization caused by acute traumatic stress. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(1), 45-57.
• Rankin, C. H., Abrams, T., Barry, R. J., Bhatnagar, S., Clayton, D. F., Colombo, J., … & Thompson, R. F. (2009). Habituation revisited: an updated and revised description of the behavioral characteristics of habituation. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 92(2), 135-138.
• Schmid, S., Wilson, D. A., & Rankin, C. H. (2015). Habituation mechanisms and their importance for cognitive function. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 8, 97.
• Sheldon, K. M., Boehm, J., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). Variety is the spice of happiness: The hedonic adaptation prevention model. The Oxford handbook of happiness, 901-914.
• Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). Is it possible to become happier?(And if so, how?). Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 129-145.
• Thompson, R. F. (2009). Habituation: a history. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 92(2), 127.
• Thompson, R. F., & Spencer, W. A. (1966). Habituation: a model phenomenon for the study of neuronal substrates of behavior. Psychological review, 73(1), 16.
• Waite, L. J., & Lehrer, E. L. (2003). The benefits from marriage and religion in the United States: A comparative analysis. Population and development review, 29(2), 255-275.
• Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical psychology review, 30(7), 890-905.
• Zimmermann, A. C., & Easterlin, R. A. (2006). Happily ever after? Cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and happiness in Germany. Population and development review, 511-528.​

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