原文：
Over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors — habits — among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks or wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.
“There are fundamental public health problems, like dirty hands instead of a soap habit, that remain killers only because we can’t figure out how to change people’s habits,” said Dr. Curtis, the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically.”
The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to — Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever — had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers’ lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.
If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of shrewd advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands.
A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.
“Our products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”
Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through ruthless advertising. As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods.
翻译：
在过去十年中，许多公司已经将创造自动行为（即习惯）的艺术磨练得炉火纯青。这些习惯帮助公司赚取了数十亿美元，因为顾客在几乎不加思考的情况下吃零食或擦拭台面，往往是对一套经过精心设计的日常提示所作出的反应。
“有一些根本性的公共卫生问题，比如人们没有使用肥皂的习惯而是双手脏兮兮的，这些问题之所以仍然是致命的，仅仅是因为我们还不知道如何改变人们的习惯，”伦敦卫生与热带医学院卫生中心主任柯蒂斯博士说。“我们想向私营企业学习如何创造自动发生的新行为。”
柯蒂斯博士求助的那些公司——宝洁、高露洁-棕榄和联合利华——已经投入了数亿美元，用于发掘消费者生活中的细微提示，而企业可以利用这些提示来引导消费者养成新的生活习惯。
如果你仔细观察，你会发现我们日常使用的许多产品——口香糖、润肤露、消毒湿巾、空气清新剂、净水器、健康零食、牙齿美白剂、织物柔顺剂、维生素——都是制造出来的习惯的结果。一个世纪前，很少有人每天多次规律地刷牙。而今天，由于精明的广告和公共卫生运动，许多美国人习惯性地每天给他们那珍珠般洁白的牙齿做两次防蛀擦洗，通常用的是高露洁、佳洁士或其他品牌。
几十年前，很多人不会在就餐之外再喝水。后来，饮料公司开始生产取自山泉水的矿泉水，现在人们在办公室整天都会不假思索地饮用瓶装水。口香糖，以前最主要的消费者是年轻小伙子，现在，在商业广告中，它被认为是饭后用来清新口气和清洁牙齿的必备品。在广告中，润肤品被认为是每天早上化妆的必备品，成为梳头和上妆之间的一个日常环节。
“当我们的产品成为每日或每周模式的一部分时，它们就成功了，”最近从宝洁公司退休的消费心理学家卡罗尔·伯宁说，该公司去年销售了价值760亿美元的汰渍、佳洁士和其他产品。“创造积极的习惯是改善消费者生活的重要组成部分，也是使新产品在商业上可行的关键。”
通过实验和观察，像伯宁博士这样的社会科学家已经了解到，通过无情的广告将某些行为与习惯性提示联系起来是有力量的。随着这种新的习惯科学的出现，当这些策略被用来销售有问题的美容霜或不健康的食品时，争议就爆发了。
重点单词与短语汇总
核心词汇：
• perfect v. 使完善，使完美
• automatic a. 自动的，无意识的
• cue n. 提示，暗示
• figure out 想出，理解
• turn to 求助于
• subtle a. 微妙的，不易察觉的
• routine n. 惯例，常规
• manufactured a. 制造的，人为的
• shrewd a. 精明的，敏锐的
• habitually ad. 习惯性地
• cavity n. 蛀牙，龋齿
• scrub n. 擦洗，刷洗
• beverage n. 饮料
• bottle v. 把...装入瓶中
• spring n. 泉水
• sip v. 小口喝，抿
• primarily ad. 主要地
• adolescent n. 青少年
• feature v. 以...为特色
• commercial n. 商业广告
• ritual n. 仪式，惯例
• slip v. 悄悄放入，滑入
• psychologist n. 心理学家
• retire v. 退休
• positive a. 积极的
• viable a. 可行的，能生存的
• tie...to... 把...与...联系起来
• ruthless a. 无情的，残酷的
• emerge v. 出现，浮现
• controversy n. 争议
• erupt v. 爆发
• tactic n. 策略，手段
• questionable a. 可疑的，有问题的
重点短语：
• in response to 作为对...的反应
• a set of 一套，一系列
• hundreds of millions of 数亿
• look hard 仔细观察
• multiple times a day 一天多次
• outside of a meal 在正餐之外
• all day long 整天
• be featured as 被描述为，以...为特色
• be advertised as 被宣传为
• slip in between 悄悄插入...之间
• be a huge part of 是...的重要组成部分
• be essential to 对...至关重要
• commercially viable 商业上可行的
