Habits exist not just at the individual level, but at the social level.
I think it's helpful to think about culture as merely the sum of society level habits.
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I find it helpful to think of counter-examples where the model fails, before concluding the model is useful.
Habits -> trigger - routine - reward.
Duelling was a thing, until it wasn't. How to square this with the HRR theory?
A more powerful/useful explanation is mimesis.
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Good point.
I think of mimesis as one of the forces that motivates us to perform habits. (Mimesis could even fall under self-interest, which might be a better model as it includes other motivators like convenience, safety, etc)
Do you think there are times when mimesis fails?
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Certainly! When you want to get a new societal-level behaviour going, it can be difficult to get mimesis working for you. So you use incentives first. I can see how this maps to TRR; but there are important differences.
For instance, where to intervene is a huge issue.
The context I'm coming from is that the Singapore government is very very good at this; but AFAIK (and I'm happy to be corrected) the habit framework *isn't* one of the models they use in csc.gov.sg
Behavioural econs, yes. Calibrated policy making, yes. Habits: ehh.
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Singapore is an interesting example of actively shaping culture! Would like to do more reading on it.
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Yea, mimesis definitely a factor here. Depends on how you sort of want to divide it up. Like I could argue mimesis occurs at individual level too in the sense that habits individuals adopt are driven by mimetic desire to some large extent.
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