In the second place, if the habit being formed is connected with an instinct, the element of intensity is added.  This, of course, means that a connection already made and one which is strongly ready to act is made to give its support to the new connection being formed.  Of course the instinct chosen for this purpose must be in accord with the particular habit and with the nature of the learner.  They may vary from the purely personal and physical up to those which have to do with groups and intellectual reactions.  The added impetus of the instinct hastens the speed of the direction or supervision.  The psychology of the value of self-activity is operative.  It should be borne in mind, however, that the two kinds of exercise must be of the same degree of accuracy if this better result in self-initiated practice is to be obtained.

Not only is it true that repetition makes for automaticity, but intensity is also an aid.  Connections which are made emphatically as well as often tend to become permanent.  This is particularly true of mental habits.  There are two factors of importance which make for intensity in habit formation.  First, the focalization of attention on the connections being made adds intensity.  Bagley in his discussion of this topic makes “focalization in attention” a necessity in all habits.  Although habits may be formed without such concentration, still it is true that if attention is given to the process, time is saved; for the added intensity secured increases the speed of learning.  In certain types of habits, however, when incidental learning plays a large part, much skill may be acquired without focalization of attention in the process.  Much of the learning of little children is of this type.  Their habits of language, ways of doing things, mannerisms, and emotional attitudes often come as a result of suggestion and imitation rather than as a result of definite formation of the new habit.

The second great law of habit formation is the law of effect.  This law says that any connection whose activity is accompanied by or followed by satisfaction tends thereby to be strengthened.  If the accompanying emotional tone is annoyance, the connection is weakened.  This law that satisfaction stamps connections in, and annoyance inhibits connections, is one of the greatest if not the greatest law of human life.  Whatever gives satisfaction, that mankind continues to do.  He learns only that which results in some kind of satisfaction.  Because of the working of this law animals learn to do their tricks, the baby learns to talk, the child learns to tell the truth, the adult learns to work with the fourth dimension.  Repetition by itself is a wasteful method of habit formation.  The law of effect must work as well as the law of exercise, if the results are to be satisfactory.  As has already been pointed out, it is not the practice alone that makes perfect, but the stressing of improvements, and that fixing is made possible only by satisfaction.  Pleasure, in the broad sense, must be the accompaniment or the result of any connection that is to become habitual.  This satisfaction may be of many different sorts, physical, emotional, or intellectual.  It may be occasioned by a reward or recognition from without or by appreciation arising from self-criticism.  In some form or other it must be present.