Behavioural Economics Part3: When Anxiety Becomes Habit
Behavioural Economics – Part 3 When Anxiety Becomes Habit: How Pressure Quietly Shapes Identity and Long-Term Behaviour Transition from Part 2 In Part 2, we examined how social comparison fuels anxiety by constantly positioning individuals within visible hierarchies of status, success, and worth. In Part 3, we move one step deeper - into what happens when this anxiety does not fade, but repeats. 1. Anxiety Is Not Always an Emergency - Sometimes It Becomes Routine In classical economics, stress is treated as a temporary disturbance. In real human systems, anxiety often becomes repetitive - and repetition changes behaviour. When individuals experience the same pressure daily - performance targets, financial insecurity, social judgment, or institutional control - the brain stops treating anxiety as a signal and starts treating it as normal operating conditions. This is not resilience. This is adaptation under constraint . Over time: Anxiety stops being questioned Pressure stops being na...