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Look Again
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Look Again

The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

Tali Sharot and Sanders Kleinfeld
Talks at Google, 2024
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Why do people become desensitized to social injustices like racism and sexism? And why do pleasurable experiences like vacations lose their allure with time? The answer, says neuroscientist Tali Sharot, is the human propensity to “habituate” to both the good and the bad. Learn to “dishabituate” by injecting change and variety into your life. In conversation with Google technical writer Sanders Kleinfeld, Sharot reveals the secret to rediscovering your joy for life’s pleasures and reigniting your contempt for life’s cruelties.

Summary

“Habituation” causes humans to grow apathetic to both pleasure and misery.

A study sponsored by a tourism company found that holidaymakers are happiest 43 hours into their vacations. Thereafter, the sheen of the trip starts to fade. Why? By 43 hours, vacationers have settled into their lodgings and enjoyed a string of firsts: their first glimpse of the ocean, their first taste of local cuisine, and so on. Then habituation sets in. Second experiences are rarely as enjoyable as firsts. 

Habituation is defined as a “diminishing physiological or emotional response to a frequently repeated (or constant) stimulus,” and it is responsible for humans’ desensitization to both the good and bad aspects of life. Consider your disgust upon entering a room filled with cigarette smoke, and how, 20 minutes later, you can hardly detect the smell. The neurons in your brain react strongly to new stimuli, but unless you leave or change the environment, inhibitory neurons will fire to quell your brain’s initial response.

Habituation is necessary for survival. Once you have established that something ...

About the Speakers

Tali Sharot is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT. She is the author of The Optimism Bias and The Influential Mind, and the co-author of Look Again. Sanders Kleinfeld is a senior technical writer at Google.

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