Why does willpower often seem to fail us, just when we need it most?
Some researchers argue that willpower is a limited resource that wears
out, like a muscle exhausted by overuse. Other experts say that our will may
falter only if we think it’s fallible: if we believe we have unlimited
self-control, we do. The answer matters, of course, because the distinctly
human capacity to temper one’s impulses is essential to virtually all aspects
of success.
Research has offered evidence in favor of both theories. Early studies
suggested that willpower is a finite resource, finding that when people are
repeatedly faced with exercising their self-control while making choices, their
ability to make good decisions eventually declines. One of the earliest such
studies found that when people first resist freshly baked cookies or luscious
chocolates, it reduces their later ability to persevere in a mentally
challenging task. Since that early study, more than 100 other experiments have
reached similar conclusions, finding that decision fatigue reduces people’s
control over everything from aggression to tolerance to pain. Obviously, as the
number of decisions we face rises — from trivial, tedious ones like selecting
which toothpaste to buy to major life-changing decisions like choosing a job or
partner — these findings have important implications for how we cope.
In contrast, more recent research has challenged the idea that willpower
is necessarily limited. Indeed, several studies have shown that reduced
willpower is seen only in people who believe that their self-control is
limited; people who think self-discipline is a function that can be maintained
over time don’t experience the same depletion. Moreover, studies have also
found that if you teach people that they have unlimited self-control, it
eliminates the decline in discipline; teaching them that willpower is limited,
however, has the opposite effect.
Now, new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, offers support for both perspectives, while clarifying the
picture overall. In a series of experiments involving some 300 undergraduates,
researchers led by Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State
University, showed that believing in unlimited willpower helps shore up your
resolve when depletion is mild, but not if you’re already running close to
empty. “When people are more seriously depleted, belief in unlimited willpower
actually made things worse,” says Baumeister.
In one experiment, Baumeister and his colleagues compared undergraduates
who were given information that suggested that willpower was either limited or
unlimited. The undergraduates were then asked to perform tasks designed to
deplete their self-control: one group had to do two such tasks while another
had to do four, and a third group did no depleting tasks.
Those in the two-task group were assigned to view multiple products and
choose between them; later, they were also asked to look at words on a computer
and type the first letter of the color of the word’s font — the catch was that
the word itself spelled out a different color than the font. Those who were
asked to do four tasks completed both of the assignments given to the other
group; in addition, they were asked to watch an Eddie Murphy video while
suppressing their laughter, and then, as their final task, they had to peruse a
document and cross out every letter e, a task that was then made
even harder as participants later had to cross out e‘s only in cases
where a vowel occurred immediately after or two letters before it.
Following these challenges, researchers assessed participants’
self-control on two measures, including one in which they measured volunteers’
preference for a small immediate reward versus a larger delayed one. Among
those who had completed two willpower-depleting tasks, their beliefs about
willpower — whether it was limited or infinite — predicted their performance on
the self-control tests. Those who had been primed to believe that willpower was
unlimited did much better. But among the participants who had to perform four
depleting tasks, the opposite was true: those who believed their willpower was
fixed did just as well or significantly better on the self-control tests.
“It’s analogous to physical tiredness,” says Baumeister. “When you are
just starting [to get tired], believing in unlimited strength or being Superman
can help you continue to perform well, but at some point, it really does catch
up with you.” As for why faith in your ability to overcome may backfire when
your task load is greatest, Baumeister suggests that it’s a matter of resource
allocation. Like running a marathon, you need to pace yourself: if you don’t,
and instead expend all your energy speeding through the first part of the race,
positive thinking may not be enough to get you to the finish line.
In another new paper, researchers at the University of Toronto suggest
that depletion of willpower is more complicated. “There’s got to be something
else going on,” says Michael Inzlicht, lead author of the research, which was
published in Perspectives on Psychological Science. “The basic idea that
we propose is that what looks like depletion are actually shifts in motivation
and attention.” For example, if you’ve recently exercised a lot of
self-control, you might feel like you deserve a reward. “[Maybe] people just
don’t feel like controlling themselves anymore,” says Inzlicht. “It’s not that
they can’t, but they just don’t feel like it. They just worked hard, now they
feel like they deserve a break.”
This motivational balance can be manipulated by various factors —
including the belief that willpower is unlimited. Baumeister notes that in his
study, he found that students who were prompted to see the study itself as
making an important contribution showed less of a depletion effect. “When
you’re depleted, it’s not that you cannot; it’s that you don’t feel
like engaging in self-control,” says Inzlicht. “If someone puts a gun to your
head, no matter how tired you are, you’re going to try to do what they say.
That shifts the question to, why don’t you feel like doing it? If I offer a
strong enough incentive, you can overcome that.”
Inzlicht also thinks attention plays an important role. “People may
[stop] attending to cues that say, Hey, control is appropriate right now, and
start paying more attention to, Hey, look, there’s a rewarding thing,” he says.
That means that to improve your willpower, you need to keep many factors
in balance. When you are facing short-term challenges, believing that your will
is indomitable helps. For longer or more stressful battles, knowing your actual
limits can help you pace yourself and allow you to avoid temptations when
you’re most vulnerable to them. Finally, being mindful of your attention,
recognizing when you need a break — and allowing small treats that don’t
actually get in the way of your goals — can also help.
In fact, studies have found that those who have the most self-discipline
don’t spend all their time resisting temptation, but instead create
environments that limit their exposure to anything that would distract or drain
them. As any office worker with an Internet connection knows, that’s not easy,
but hey, I did manage to finish this post.
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