USC Dornsife experts share their research insights on how to live a longer, happier, healthier life.
By Susan Bell and Margaret Crable July 11, 2024
After turning 65, the average American enjoys just one additional year of life without significant health issues, according to the World Health Organization. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Adopting the right health behaviors is crucial for extending our years of good health, but sticking with them isn’t always easy — especially when they require significant effort.
Daphna Oyserman, Dean’s Professor of Psychology and co-director of the USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center, is an expert on the psychology behind decision-making. Her research on identity-based motivation sheds light on what drives our decisions and offers some important tips on how to make the best choices for our health and well-being.
According to Oyserman, one important factor influencing our decision-making or habit-forming processes is whether it feels easy or difficult to imagine ourselves doing the action in question. “When it feels challenging, we might quickly conclude it’s not for us,” she says. “This mindset leads to a self-defeating prophecy: We fear we will fail and thus opt to not waste time trying. As a result, we invest less effort or shift to something else.”
Oyserman argues that rethinking our response to difficulty is essential. “Many important, valuable things are hard to execute. Shifting our mindset to view challenges as a natural and essential part of achieving valuable goals makes it more likely we’ll embrace them. Think about it as ‘no pain, no gain.’”
Applying this principle to health behaviors, which often demand consistency and repetition, makes it easier to commit to habits that foster well-being. Recognizing that it’s inherently difficult to maintain such habits for their long-term benefits can motivate us to stick with them and improve our quality of life. “If each habit feels hard and I tell myself, ‘It’s not for me; I don’t want to waste my time,’ I’m simply going to be much less likely to do healthy things,” Oyserman says.
The alternative is to consider that important things in your life — such as healthy behaviors that will increase longevity and well-being — are actually worth engaging in.
