Become What You Practice

You Become What You Practice

Modern culture is comfortable with the idea that identity is flexible. We speak casually about “alter egos,” pseudonyms, burner accounts, and online personas, often assuming that who we really are remains untouched beneath these masks. The comforting belief is that roles are costumes: we can put them on, take them off, and walk away unchanged.

Psychological research suggests something less reassuring and far more mechanical.

Human identity is not formed primarily by intention or self-description, but by repeated action. Decades of research in self-perception, habit formation, and learning theory show that people infer who they are from what they do repeatedly, even when those actions are framed as temporary, ironic, or role-based. The mind learns from behavior. What is rehearsed becomes easier; what becomes easy becomes habitual; and what becomes habitual begins to feel like “me.”

This is why alter egos can work in some cases and fail in others. When people adopt a persona associated with discipline, courage, or creativity, performance can improve — not because the persona is magical, but because it cues different standards, expectations, and behaviors. Research on self-distancing and identity-based motivation shows that reducing ego threat and changing evaluative frames can improve persistence, emotional regulation, and task performance.

But the same mechanism applies in the opposite direction.

Research on aggression and online behavior consistently finds that expressing hostility does not drain it. The long-standing catharsis hypothesis — the idea that venting aggression reduces aggressive impulses — has been repeatedly tested and repeatedly falsified. Instead, expressing anger rehearses it. Aggressive thoughts become more accessible, hostile interpretations become more automatic, and inhibitory barriers weaken. This effect appears even when individuals consciously frame their behavior as “just role-play” or “not the real me.”

Online environments amplify this process. Anonymity and pseudonymity reduce accountability and increase disinhibition, making antisocial behaviors easier to enact. Longitudinal research shows that these behaviors do not remain neatly compartmentalized; they generalize into attitudes, norms, and future behavior. The brain does not sharply distinguish between “this is a persona” and “this is me” — it records practice.

This helps explain why catharsis often feels effective while failing in the long term. Emotional arousal may temporarily decrease after expression, producing a sense of relief. But relief is not resolution. Relief lowers tension; rehearsal lowers inhibition. Over time, what was once framed as an outlet becomes a well-worn path.

Crucially, conscious intent does not override these learning processes. Knowing that a behavior is “just an alter ego” does not prevent its psychological effects. Identity is shaped less by what we believe about ourselves than by what we repeatedly enact, especially under conditions of low consequence or emotional intensity.

This does not mean that all exploration of dark or difficult material is harmful. Symbolic and representational expression — fiction, satire, abstraction — operates differently from direct interpersonal behavior. Writing a villain is not the same as practicing cruelty. The difference lies in rehearsal: one explores ideas; the other trains responses.

The implication is simple, uncomfortable, and well supported by evidence: alter egos are not moral firewalls. They are training environments. They strengthen whatever patterns they are used to rehearse.

In the end, the principle is neither mystical nor moralistic. It is procedural.

You do not become what you wish to be.
You do not become what you pretend to be.
You become what you practice.

Selected References

Self-Perception & Identity Formation

Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 6). Academic Press.
Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337.

Identity-Based Motivation & Role Effects

Oyserman, D. (2009). Identity-based motivation: Implications for action-readiness, procedural-readiness, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(3), 250–260.
White, R. E., Prager, K., Schaefer, C., et al. (2016). The “Batman effect”: Improving persistence in young children. Child Development, 87(5), 1563–1571.

Self-Distancing & Emotional Regulation

Kross, E., & Ayduk, O. (2011). Making meaning out of negative experiences by self-distancing. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(3), 187–191.

Aggression, Catharsis, and Rehearsal

Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., & Stack, A. D. (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 367–376.
Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724–731.
Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27–51.

Online Disinhibition & Pseudonymity

Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326.
Bargh, J. A., McKenna, K. Y. A., & Fitzsimons, G. M. (2002). Can you see the real me? Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 33–48.

Habit Formation & Behavioral Learning

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843–863.