We like to think of our habits as our own. The coffee we reach for each morning, the time we spend scrolling on our phones, the glass of wine we pour at the end of the day. These are personal choices, shaped by our preferences, personalities and circumstances.

But how much of what we do is actually influenced by the people around us?

From the colleagues who encourage us to work through lunch to the friends who order another round of drinks, our social environments quietly shape what we consider normal, acceptable and desirable. We learn behaviours by observing others, repeat them to maintain social connections and often continue them long after we have stopped questioning why.

Bad habits, then, are not always individual failings. They can be the product of collective behaviour.

And in a world where our social circles extend beyond family, friends and colleagues to include influencers, online communities and algorithmically curated feeds, the people shaping our habits are no longer necessarily people we know.

Understanding the influence of others offers a different perspective on why bad habits are so difficult to break — and why changing behaviour often requires changing the environment around us.

Patterns — We learn what is normal from others

Much of human behaviour is shaped by social norms — the unwritten rules that govern how we behave within a group. These norms help us navigate everyday life, providing cues about what is expected, what is acceptable and what might be rewarded.

Consider eating. We might think the amount we eat is determined by how hungry we are, but research suggests otherwise.

A 2015 review of social modelling and eating behaviour examined 69 experiments involving more than 5,800 participants. Of these, 64 found a significant effect of social modelling on eating behaviour. People tended to adjust what or how much they ate in response to others, with the influence particularly strong when they wanted to connect with, or felt similar to, those around them.

The same principle extends to many other behaviours. We take cues from our colleagues about how late we should work, from our friends about how much we should drink, and from our families about how we should spend or save money.

Social influence can also work in the opposite direction, helping people abandon unhealthy habits.

A landmark 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examined smoking behaviour across a social network of more than 12,000 people over three decades. Researchers found that smokers and non-smokers tended to cluster together, and that groups of connected people often appeared to quit smoking around the same time.

While such observational research cannot fully separate social influence from people choosing friends with similar behaviours, it highlights the importance of our social networks in shaping health behaviours.

There is something reassuring about doing what others do. It reduces uncertainty, reinforces our sense of belonging and helps us feel that our choices are justified.

The pattern is clear: habits are rarely formed in isolation. What we repeatedly see others doing becomes part of our understanding of what is normal.

Tensions — The conflict between belonging and behaving differently

The difficulty with breaking a bad habit is that it can also mean breaking an unwritten social agreement.

Imagine someone who decides to stop drinking alcohol. The personal decision might be relatively straightforward, but maintaining it within a friendship group where drinking is central to socialising can be considerably more challenging.

The issue is not necessarily overt peer pressure. It might be the subtle discomfort of being the only person ordering a non-alcoholic drink, declining an invitation or feeling the need to explain a decision that others take for granted.

Australia’s relationship with alcohol illustrates this tension.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–2023, 31% of Australians aged 14 and over consumed alcohol at risky levels, representing approximately 6.6 million people.

Interestingly, 69% of people drinking at risky levels were aware that Australia had guidelines to reduce alcohol-related health risks.

Knowledge alone, it seems, is not always enough to change behaviour.

The same tension exists in workplaces. Employees may recognise the importance of taking breaks, switching off after hours or maintaining a healthy work–life balance, yet find themselves responding to emails late at night because everyone else appears to be doing so.

Social media introduces another dimension. We are increasingly exposed to carefully curated versions of other people’s lives — their spending, achievements, appearance, productivity and experiences. These can create unrealistic benchmarks against which we evaluate our own behaviour.

A habit may begin as an attempt to keep up with others and gradually become something we feel unable to stop.

There is also a tension for governments and organisations seeking to change behaviour. Campaigns that highlight the widespread nature of an undesirable behaviour risk inadvertently reinforcing the impression that it is normal.

Telling people that everyone is wasting food, spending too much time on their phones or failing to exercise may generate awareness, but it can also provide reassurance that they are not alone in doing so.

The tension is that belonging is a fundamental human need, yet the behaviours that help us belong are not always the behaviours that are good for us.

Shifts — How the people influencing us are changing

For much of human history, social influence was relatively local. Our habits were shaped by the people we lived with, worked alongside and encountered within our communities.

Today, our reference groups are expanding.

A teenager might be influenced more by an online creator than by a neighbour. An employee might compare their career progression with thousands of professionals on LinkedIn. A consumer might adopt a new skincare routine, fitness regime or spending habit after repeatedly seeing it promoted by people they have never met.

The scale and frequency of social influence have changed.

Digital platforms make behaviours highly visible, measurable and repeatable. Likes, shares, comments and follower counts provide signals about what other people approve of. Algorithms then reinforce exposure to similar content, potentially creating a distorted impression of how widespread particular behaviours really are.

But social norms are not fixed. They can change remarkably over time.

Consider smoking. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, daily smoking among Australians aged 14 and over declined from 24% in 1991 to 8.3% in 2022–2023.

This transformation reflects decades of public health campaigns, taxation, regulation, changing environments and evolving social attitudes. Smoking shifted from being an accepted feature of many social occasions to a behaviour increasingly restricted and discouraged.

We are seeing a similar, although less straightforward, shift in drinking culture.

The proportion of Australians aged 14–17 who had consumed alcohol in the previous year fell from 69% in 2001 to 31% in 2022–2023, according to the AIHW‘s research into young people’s alcohol consumption.

Among 18–24-year-olds, the proportion who had never consumed a full glass of alcohol increased from 7.5% to 16.3% over the same period.

These changes do not mean that problematic drinking has disappeared. Risky drinking remains prevalent among young adults. However, they suggest that younger generations are developing different relationships with alcohol and, potentially, different expectations about what socialising looks like.

The growth of alcohol-free beverages, sober social events, running clubs and other activity-based social experiences offers examples of how alternative behaviours can become part of mainstream culture.

The opportunity is not simply to discourage bad habits, but to make alternative behaviours socially attractive.

The shift is from understanding behaviour as an individual choice to recognising that changing collective expectations can make healthier choices easier.

Looking ahead

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about bad habits is that we often think of them as personal weaknesses, when they may be behaviours that have been collectively learned and reinforced.

We drink because others drink. We check our phones because others check theirs. We work longer hours because that is what we see rewarded. We consume because consumption is part of the culture around us.

But the same forces that reinforce undesirable habits can also help us change them.

When a colleague starts leaving work on time, a friend orders an alcohol-free drink, or a family decides to put their phones away during dinner, they are doing more than changing their own behaviour. They are providing others with permission to behave differently.

Perhaps the most powerful way to break a bad habit is not to become more disciplined, but to make a different behaviour feel normal.

Square Holes is a cultural insight studio.

We design mixed method explorations of people and culture beyond the category,  uncovering the patterns, tensions and shifts shaping behaviour to inform strategy, inspire innovation and enable confident decisions. Our studio model brings together the right mix of thinkers, researchers and specialists for each exploration. If you’re navigating change, entering a new market, or seeking deeper understanding of people and culture, let’s start a conversation >