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The psychology of why so many people bite their nails

Excessive nail biting is a surprisingly widespread human activity.

It goes back millennia: the ancient Greek philosopher Cleanthes, for instance, was said to be addicted to biting his nails. In the modern era, no one has any good data on how many of us share the affliction (technically called onychophagia), but small-scale studies indicate about 20 percent or so of adults bite regularly — which would suggest millions of Americans do it.

"Everybody picks and bites to a degree," says Fred Penzel, a psychologist who helps patients deal with nail biting, hair plucking, and other body-focused repetitive disorders. "When it gets to the point that people are doing damage to themselves,…

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 It’s dirty and disgusting. So why do we bite our nails?

Some research shows that nail biters could also be just genetically predisposed to the bad habit. A third of nail biters state that they have a family member who bites their nails as well, says Shari Lipner, an assistant professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medicine who’s researched nail biting. And when you look at identical twins, Lipner says, it’s very common that both children bite their nails.

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