The Power of Habit

by

Charles Duhigg

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Power of Habit makes teaching easy.

Rich Meyer Character Analysis

Rich Meyer is the founder of Mediabase, a company that measures and analyzes the most popular songs at radio stations around the U.S. In 2003, he determined that people are more likely to listen all the way through songs that sound familiar to them. This supports Duhigg’s argument that “making the unfamiliar seem familiar” is the key to changing other people’s habits.

Rich Meyer Quotes in The Power of Habit

The The Power of Habit quotes below are all either spoken by Rich Meyer or refer to Rich Meyer . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

This insight helped explain why “Hey Ya!” was failing on the radio, despite the fact that Hit Song Science and music executives were sure it would be a hit. The problem wasn’t that “Hey Ya!” was bad. The problem was that “Hey Ya!” wasn’t familiar. Radio listeners didn’t want to make a conscious decision each time they were presented with a new song. Instead, their brains wanted to follow a habit. Much of the time, we don’t actually choose if we like or dislike a song. It would take too much mental effort. Instead, we react to the cues (“This sounds like all the other songs I’ve ever liked”) and rewards (“It’s fun to hum along!”) and without thinking, we either start singing, or reach over and change the station.

Related Characters: Charles Duhigg (speaker), Rich Meyer
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Power of Habit LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Power of Habit PDF

Rich Meyer Quotes in The Power of Habit

The The Power of Habit quotes below are all either spoken by Rich Meyer or refer to Rich Meyer . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Habits, Human Behavior, and Success Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

This insight helped explain why “Hey Ya!” was failing on the radio, despite the fact that Hit Song Science and music executives were sure it would be a hit. The problem wasn’t that “Hey Ya!” was bad. The problem was that “Hey Ya!” wasn’t familiar. Radio listeners didn’t want to make a conscious decision each time they were presented with a new song. Instead, their brains wanted to follow a habit. Much of the time, we don’t actually choose if we like or dislike a song. It would take too much mental effort. Instead, we react to the cues (“This sounds like all the other songs I’ve ever liked”) and rewards (“It’s fun to hum along!”) and without thinking, we either start singing, or reach over and change the station.

Related Characters: Charles Duhigg (speaker), Rich Meyer
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis: