Willpower: not a limited resource?

Jess_Riedel

Stanford Report has a university public press release about a recent paper [subscription required] in Psychological Science. The paper is available for free from a website of one of the authors.

The gist is that they find evidence against the (currently fashionable) hypothesis that willpower is an expendable resource. Here is the leader:

Veronika Job, Carol S. Dweck, and Gregory M. Walton
Stanford University

Abstract:

Much recent research suggests that willpower—the capacity to exert self-control—is a limited resource that is depleted after exertion. We propose that whether depletion takes place or not depends on a person’s belief about whether willpower is a limited resource. Study 1 found that individual differences in lay theories about willpower moderate ego-depletion effects: People who viewed the capacity for self-control as not limited did not show diminished self-control after a depleting experience. Study 2 replicated the effect, manipulating lay theories about willpower. Study 3 addressed questions about the mechanism underlying the effect. Study 4, a longitudinal field study, found that theories about willpower predict change in eating behavior, procrastination, and self-regulated goal striving in depleting circumstances. Taken together, the findings suggest that reduced self-control after a depleting task or during demanding periods may reflect people’s beliefs about the availability of willpower rather than true resource depletion.

(HT: Brashman, as posted on HackerNews.)

Stanford Report has a university public press release about a recent paper [subscription required] in Psychological Science. The paper is available for free from a website of one of the authors.

The gist is that they find evidence against the (currently fashionable) hypothesis that willpower is an expendable resource. Here is the leader:

Veronika Job, Carol S. Dweck, and Gregory M. Walton
Stanford University

Abstract:

Much recent research suggests that willpower—the capacity to exert self-control—is a limited resource that is depleted after exertion. We propose that whether depletion takes place or not depends on a person’s belief about whether willpower is a limited resource. Study 1 found that individual differences in lay theories about willpower moderate ego-depletion effects: People who viewed the capacity for self-control as not limited did not show diminished self-control after a depleting experience. Study 2 replicated the effect, manipulating lay theories about willpower. Study 3 addressed questions about the mechanism underlying the effect. Study 4, a longitudinal field study, found that theories about willpower predict change in eating behavior, procrastination, and self-regulated goal striving in depleting circumstances. Taken together, the findings suggest that reduced self-control after a depleting task or during demanding periods may reflect people’s beliefs about the availability of willpower rather than true resource depletion.

(HT: Brashman, as posted on HackerNews.)

Excellent point.

However, it seems reasonable to me that push polling about someone's future behavior will lead them to act consistently with the signal they just sent in the poll - like in Cialdini's Influence, where people are polled on whether they like to go to opera, or give charitably, by some attractive person they want to impress, and then after affirming are ambushed with a sales pitch (they thought it was an innocent poll but are trapped by their answers). So it seems reasonable to assume that those who were push-polled into believing they will become either sloppier, or more accurate, with fatigue, would act consonantly.

But I don't think this objection is likely the whole story. The simplest explanation is that people's stated expectations of their performance do shape their performance - the power of positive thinking, and obviously, negative. (possibly unvoiced/persistent expectations as well as explicitly declared, although of course it's nearly impossible to measure such things surreptitiously).

So it seems reasonable to assume that those who were push-polled into believing they will become either sloppier, or more accurate, with fatigue, would act consonantly.

Right. I'm not convinced that priming people so close to a task tells us much about their actual beliefs in general, and how they will behave outside a lab: it just tells us what people believe they believe. It's like the quick fix people get after motivational seminars that fades away.

The manipulation didn't measure the effect of beliefs; it measured the effect of the cognitive affirmat... (read more)

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Willpower: not a limited resource?

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Willpower: not a limited resource?

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