gwern comments on Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality - Less Wrong

105 Post author: patrissimo 14 September 2010 04:17PM

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Comment author: gwern 04 October 2010 06:52:59PM 1 point [-]

Not everyone in “The Thief of Time” approves of the reliance on the extended will. Mark D. White advances an idealist argument rooted in Kantian ethics: recognizing procrastination as a failure of will, we should seek to strengthen the will rather than relying on external controls that will allow it to atrophy further. This isn’t a completely fruitless task: much recent research suggests that will power is, in some ways, like a muscle and can be made stronger. The same research, though, also suggests that most of us have a limited amount of will power and that it’s easily exhausted. In one famous study, people who had been asked to restrain themselves from readily available temptation—in this case, a pile of chocolate-chip cookies that they weren’t allowed to touch—had a harder time persisting in a difficult task than people who were allowed to eat the cookies.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/10/11/101011crbo_books_surowiecki?currentPage=all

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 05 October 2010 08:03:53PM *  1 point [-]

This is relevant but disappointing. What research? The article is well written but poorly sourced. Everything I've seen demonstrates a short-term "drained battery" effect, and nothing I've seen indicates a long-term "trained muscle" effect. Perhaps this is because the studies simply aren't long-term or large enough.

Edit: thanks to Unnamed: I see that I was wrong. http://graehl.posterous.com/evidence-that-self-control-can-be-trained-lik

I say "large enough" because I expect most people to consistently fail to do things which are difficult; we want to know what happens to people who really can try (subjectively) hard over a long stretch, and not only when especially aroused. I'd be interested to see a study design that can cause a significant portion of its subjects to enter and maintain this state.

If willpower training really can happen, but most people aren't going to reach it, then showing the exact mechanism by which it works in the small minority who can effectively train it would also satisfy me.

Comment author: Unnamed 06 October 2010 04:13:32AM 1 point [-]

Here's a paper that reviews some of the evidence for the muscle hypothesis, pdf. The relevant section starts on p. 1779. The citation is:

Baumeister, R.F., Gailliot, M., DeWall, C.N., & Oaten, M. (2006). Self-regulation and personality: How interventions increase regulatory success, and how depletion moderates the effects of traits on behavior. Journal of Personality, 74, 1773–1801.

Another relevant study, which I can't find free online (except for the abstract), is:

Gailliot, M. T., Plant, E. A., Butz, D. A., & Baumeister, R. F. (2007). Increasing self-regulatory strength can reduce the depleting effect of suppressing stereotypes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 281–294.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 12 October 2010 09:40:26PM *  0 points [-]

I finally got around to reading this. You're right, there is some evidence that willpower-poor individuals can be easily trained to do better (assuming they can actually implement for a long period of time some habit which involves self-regulation). Amusingly, there's also evidence that consuming more glucose also helps ward off ego depletion.

My detailed response is here: http://graehl.posterous.com/evidence-that-self-control-can-be-trained-lik

Comment author: Unnamed 13 October 2010 05:05:00AM 1 point [-]

The argument has been made that blood glucose essentially is the resource that gets depleted when you're low on willpower. Using willpower is an energy-intensive brain activity, so it's hard to do when your blood sugar is low. Some of the studies that have shown this have given people a sugary drink to restore their willpower, but that's probably not the way to go in real life since it'll cause a temporary spike in blood sugar followed by a crash. But it's possible that fixing your diet to avoid low blood sugar could improve your willpower.

There have also been several studies looking at immediate interventions that can counteract the drained battery effect. In other words, people come into the lab, they do one task that drains their willpower, then they get some intervention that might restore their willpower, then they do another task that requires willpower. This review by Baumeister, Vohs, and Tice (pdf) lists a few that have worked and gives citations:

  • Humor and laughter
  • Other positive emotions
  • Cash incentives
  • Implementation intentions (‘‘if ... then’’ plans)
  • Social goals (e.g., wanting to help people; wanting to be a good relationship partner)
Comment author: gwern 12 October 2010 10:41:51PM 0 points [-]

Any chance you could remove all the newlines in the quotes? They're pretty unreadable

with random

newlines.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 12 October 2010 11:16:08PM 0 points [-]

sure. paste from pdf artifact.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 06 October 2010 06:49:11AM 0 points [-]

Thanks. I'll recant as needed after reading.

Comment author: gwern 05 October 2010 09:50:25PM 1 point [-]

The article is well written but poorly sourced.

Presumably the sourcing is in the book being reviewed which presents 'much' research about the muscle paradigm.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 05 October 2010 10:06:23PM 0 points [-]

Yeah, I considered this - perhaps my library can get me the book.

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