Stanford behavior scientist Dr. BJ Fogg, author of “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything,” explains why the best new habits are tiny ones. Then, learn why human infants are late bloomers compared to other baby animals.
Stanford behavior scientist Dr. BJ Fogg, author of “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything,” explains why the best new habits are tiny ones. Then, learn why human infants are late bloomers compared to other baby animals.
More from Dr. BJ Fogg, Stanford behavior scientist:
Babies are all born prematurely - Compared to Other Baby Animals, Human Infants Are Late Bloomers by Ashley Hamer
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-new-habits-have-to-be-tiny-w-dr-bj-fogg-and-why-human-infants-are-late-bloomers
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why the best new habits are tiny ones, with help from Stanford behavior scientist, Dr. BJ Fogg. Then, you’ll learn why human babies are late bloomers compared to other baby animals.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Yesterday on Curiosity Daily, you learned how to choose new habits you might actually stick with. And today, Stanford behavior scientist Dr. BJ Fogg is back to explain why those habits have to be tiny. Seemed like a pretty good question to ask, since his newest book is called “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.” Here’s our conversation.
[CLIP 5:28]
Again, the name of the book is “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.” Dr. BJ Fogg also told us that if you feel like one “tiny” habit isn't ambitious enough for you, then you can try starting, say, 3 tiny habits in your first week. That way, you can push yourself a little harder to learn the skills you need to change your behavior. You don’t do it by increasing the SIZE of the habit, but by the NUMBER of habits. And hey, if 3 habits work great, then try 12 tiny habits the next week. As for his book, Dr. Fogg wanted us to emphasize that it contains NEW stuff you've probably never heard before. It’s NEW models and methods of understanding and designing behavior, based on NEW research. So check it out! You can pick up Tiny Habits and learn about Dr. Fogg’s other work in today’s show notes.
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Baby horses can walk hours after they’re born. Sea turtles can scuttle toward the ocean within days of hatching. Human babies? They can’t even hold their heads up for the first six months! The fact is that humans are born underdeveloped. But why? Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with our mothers’ hips — but it does have to do with our big brains. Let’s talk about why human infants are such late bloomers, compared to other babies in the animal kingdom.
The common theory goes like this: fully grown infants have huge heads made to fit their huge brains. If human mothers had pelvises big enough to fit those heads, they wouldn’t be able to walk. So as a compromise, our species cuts gestation short and lets the rest of development happen outside of the womb. But a number of studies say this can’t be the reason for our underdeveloped newborns: for one thing, research suggests that women could have a much wider pelvis and still walk just fine. And for another, our gestation period isn’t really cut all that short: the human pregnancy period is longer than all other primate species except orangutans.
Instead, it might come down to energy costs. Being pregnant takes a whole lot of energy. At six months, a pregnant woman is using twice her usual energy to maintain her basic metabolic processes. As the baby develops, that just goes up. It's believed that humans can’t sustain anything more than two and a half times their basal metabolic rate, and by nine months, Mom is getting dangerously close to that threshold.
So, the original theory is half right. It's true that our brains are why we're born early. But the human pelvis has nothing to do with it. Growing our big brains in the womb takes energy, which means that Mom reaches her metabolic cutoff before we're fully developed. The pelvis, then, evolved to accommodate our big melons, not the other way around. Once we're born, our brains keep growing, leading to cognitive abilities advanced enough to use language, create art, and understand this podcast. We might have been at the back of the class when we were born, but don't worry — we're just late bloomers.
CODY: Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today. Starting with
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CODY: Today’s last story was written by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!