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srdiamond comments on Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge - Less Wrong
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No, the experimenters also found that those lacking the self-limiting theory didn't suffer any detriment in their performance. They performed like Energizer Rabbits.
The researchers also countered my point by showing real-world effects on akrasia-type behavior. So, it's possible that contrary to appearance and introspection, lapses in concentration do demonstrate the same phenomenon as procrastination.
Regardless the scope of the findings, whether will-power is a limited resource is one of the most important questions for rational self-regulation. It exemplifies ongoing research relevant to procrastination, which you're unlikely to see addressed in the self-help literature, because of its narrow cognitive-behavioral framework. Reorienting one's reading and reasoning to the broader topic of impulsivity, moreover, leads you to the work of two laboratories advancing opposed theories, a healthier epistemic environment than one dominated by cognitive behaviorism.
I'm unclear on why you think that their findings in the particular cases shown demonstrate what they claim. (I could easily be missing something.) The lack of findings demonstrates that the cases considered are not examples of the effect that they looked for - that still fails to show that there is no such effect.
Again, what they did show was that the existence of the mental model was detrimental to performance.
I just want to point out that it is impossible to prove a thing doesn't exist.
However, when things exist we expect certain observations, and we don't find them that is, in fact, evidence that the thing we are looking for doesn't exist. It isn't particularly strong evidence (unless the "thing" absolutely must cause the effect we're looking for in the experiment). Not finding any effect in these studies really should shake your confidence in the theory quite a lot unless a.) there is already a large body of evidence contradicting these findings (doesn't sound like there is) or b.) there are some methodological flaws that invalidates the findings in the study (doesn't sound like there are, just disagreement with the conclusion). More studies would clarify both issues.
In other words, the lack of findings do, in fact, show that there is no such effect. It's just weak evidence, that's all. If various experiments are repeated over and over looking for the self-limiting control and never find them, well, we still haven't proven it doesn't exist. However, we can be pretty damn sure that it either doesn't exist or is so insignificant as to be meaningless.
I'm not saying this has happened at all, I haven't read any of the papers on the subject, I'm just saying your reasoning has a flaw. If you're really attached to the self-limiting theory for some reason, it could be a case of looking for evidence that allows you to believe in what you want to believe, rather than looking at whether or not the theory has a decent probability of being right and adjusting your views accordingly.