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Habit and plasticity

Habit is a settled way of acting that persists until something changes it. Plasticity is the capacity to change without falling apart. James linked the two: a structure that yields slowly, but not all at once, passes through stable phases, each a new set of habits.4 Later authors use plasticity for the range of forms cells and tissues can adopt, and tie it to repair and resistance to injury.9

Earliest held
1880, Darwin, C.
Most discussed in
The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2, 1890
In the library
543 passages in 66 works
Rewritten
2026-10-03
18501875190019251950197520002025Darwin, C., 18801Binet, A., 18882James, W., 18903James, W., 18904Jennings, H. S., 19065Washburn, M. F., 19086Washburn, M. F., 19087Child, C. M., 19248Levin M, 20239
01

Early observations

Darwin, in The Power of Movement in Plants (1880), used habit for a trait that can fade. He pointed to the inherited habit of winter and summer wheat to grow best at different seasons, and noted that it is lost after a few years.1 Binet, in 1888, described the habits of vorticel infusoria as set by the medium. In food-rich water they stay put. In poor water they become migratory and race about in search of nutriment.2 Jennings, in 1906, gave an objective test for habit and memory. A change from fatigue does not count. The reaction must be modified so that it suits the conditions better.5

02

James on structure

James, in The Principles of Psychology (1890), argued that the laws of Nature are the immutable habits of the elementary sorts of matter. Organic habits, he wrote, are more variable than this.3 He defined plasticity as the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence but strong enough not to yield all at once. He called each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure a new set of habits.4 On this view habit and plasticity describe the same body at different moments: one names what is stable, the other what allows change.

03

Habit in animals

Washburn, in The Animal Mind (1908), reported experiments on whether one habit helps or hinders the next. Yerkes found that dancing mice which had learned one maze learned another more readily than untrained mice.6 Hunter found that pigeons which had learned one maze were delayed in learning a second. Yoakum reported a similar delay in squirrels learning puzzle-boxes.7 The results therefore disagree. Child, in 1924, held that in simple forms the ability to learn and acquire habits goes little beyond the axial gradient, the most general habit of all, with some differentiation in relation to it.8

04

Plasticity in form

Levin, in 2023, treats plasticity as a property of morphogenetic control, not of single cells. He notes that a focus on cellular plasticity and cell-cycle checkpoints predicts that regenerative animals, with easy access to undifferentiated cells, should be prone to cancer. He states that the true situation is the opposite.9 In his account, animals with robust control through high plasticity resist changes of circumstance at many scales. They regenerate after loss of limbs and organs, and they suppress cancer and resist aging.9

SourcesEach quotation was checked word for word against the passage it opens.
  1. the in- herited habit of winter and summer wheat to grow best at different seasons; fir this habit is lost after a few yeursDarwin, C., 1880 · The Power of Movement in Plants · open at passage 818
  2. if they are placed in a medium affording but little nutritive material, they become as migratory as the hunters, and are seen to race about in all directions searching for more abundant nutriment.Binet, A., 1888 · The Psychic Life of Micro-organisms: A Study in Experimental Psychology · open at passage 119
  3. The laws of Nature are nothing but the immutable habits which the different elementary sorts of matter follow in their actions and reactions upon each other. In the organic world, how ever, the habits are more variable than this.James, W., 1890 · The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2 · open at passage 235
  4. means the possession of a struc ture weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.James, W., 1890 · The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2 · open at passage 236
  5. If the behavior is merely changed in a way that is not regulatory, as by fatigue, we do not call this memory. In memory the reaction is modified in such a way that it is now more adequate to the conditions to be met.Jennings, H. S., 1906 · Behavior of the Lower Organisms · open at passage 937
  6. reports that dancing mice which have learned one maze learn another one more readily than those which have had no previous training.Washburn, M. F., 1908 · The Animal Mind: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology · open at passage 520
  7. Hunter (349), on the other hand, found that pigeons which had learned one maze were delayed in learning a second one, and Yoakum (832) reports a similar condition in the learning of puzzle-boxes by squirrelsWashburn, M. F., 1908 · The Animal Mind: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology · open at passage 520
  8. the ability to learn, to acquire habits, goes but little beyond the most general habit of all, 7. e., the axial gradient, and more or less differentiation in relation to it.Child, C. M., 1924 · Physiological Foundations of Behavior · open at passage 682
  9. Animals with robust morphogenetic control due to high levels of plasticity are resistant to changes of circumstance (injury) at many scales: they regenerate after loss of limbs and organs (degradation of body-scale information)Levin M, 2023 · Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency… · open at passage 54
Linked ideas
Trial and errorrelated to
Washburn's maze studies concern how habits form and how earlier habits help or hinder new ones, the learning side of habit.
Child treats the axial gradient as the most general habit of simple organisms, which new external factors can overwrite.
Binet and Jennings describe infusorian food habits that change with the medium, an early case of behavioural plasticity.
Regenerationrelated to
Levin links high plasticity to robust morphogenetic control, including regrowth after loss of limbs and organs.
Alam et al. call cancer metabolism plastic, while Levin says plastic, regenerative animals suppress cancer readily.
James reports Lamarck's view that habits become propensities, perpetuated unchanged while the outward conditions of existence stay the same.
Passages present Xenobots and Anthrobots as examples of massive cellular plasticity: novel behaviours like kinematic self-replication from standard cells. Habit as settled action isn't discussed, so the link is via plasticity only.
Passages liken rewriting planarian target morphology via brief gap-junction blockade to synaptic plasticity: gap junctions freeze transient stimuli into stable network changes. Habit itself is never discussed.
Habit and memory in the objective sense, a modified response to past stimuli, is the question the flatworm work takes up.
The Y-maze result, a left preference after repeated reward, is a simple case of past experience shaping later choice.
Passages tie plasticity, meaning regulative or morphogenetic plasticity, to cell collectives' problem-solving competencies. They never discuss habit, so the link covers only the plasticity half of A.
Basal cognitionrelated to
Passages treat plasticity (experience-dependent change, history-based remodeling of stable states) as a core mechanism of basal cognition in non-neural cells, networks and tissues; habit itself is never discussed.
Habituation and sensitization are listed alongside Pavlovian conditioning as learning types found in simple network models.
Passages map neural plasticity and neuromodulation onto body patterning, where pre-nervous neurotransmitter signaling and bioelectric change shape form. Habit itself is never discussed, so the link runs through plasticity only.
Where it is discussedPassages matching habit, plasticity, habits
1890The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2 · James, W.194
1908The Animal Mind: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology · Washburn, M. F.34
1906Behavior of the Lower Organisms · Jennings, H. S.29
1880The Power of Movement in Plants · Darwin, C.25
1925Elements of Physical Biology · Lotka, A. J.21
2022Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework… · Levin M20
1992On Growth and Form · Thompson, D. A. W.16
2023Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency… · Levin M14
1924Physiological Foundations of Behavior · Child, C. M.13
1957An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine · Bernard, C.13