MugaSofer comments on Why I haven't signed up for cryonics - Less Wrong
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For the record, you do have a limited supply of willpower. I'm guessing those monks either had extraordinary willpower reserves or nonstandard worldviews that made abstinence actually easier than sin.
It seems they practice that willpower muscle very explicitly for hours every day. Abstinence should actually be pretty easy considering you have very little else to drain your willpower with.
If you think so.
Looking into your link now, but it was my understanding that the effect was weaker if the participant didn't believe in it, not nonexistent (i.e. disbelieving in ego depletion has a placebo effect.)
Wikipedia, Font Of All Knowledge concurrs:
ETA: It seems the Wikipedia citation is to a replication attempt of your link. They found the effect was real, but it only lessened ego depletion - subjects who were told they had unlimited willpower still suffered suffered ego depletion, just less strongly. So yup, placebo.
I'm not sure the word "placebo" makes sense when you are discussing purely psychological phenomena. Obviously any effects will be related to psychology- its not like they gave them a pill.
I ... think it's supposed to be regulated at least partially by glucose levels? So in some of the experiments, they were giving them sugar pills, or sugar water or something? I'm afraid this isn't actually my field :(
But of course, no phenomenon is purely psychological (unless the patient is a ghost.) For example, I expect antidepressant medication is susceptible to the placebo effect.
See here.
If it isn't, you're doing something wrong.
ETA: By which I don't mean that it is easy to do it right. Practicing anything involves a lot of doing it wrong while learning to do it right.