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.
There are fundamental costs to starting a task and continuing a task. Setting up the tools you need to begin working has a fixed cost that does not depend on how long you work. So there are good reasons for splitting up your time into long segments spent on particular sorts of work, rather than switching modes rapidly.
In multi-agent systems -- or, as a special case, in dynamically inconsistent "agents" - this effect will be (vastly?) magnified. Say Bob is in a group, and he wants the group to do task B, but the group is leaning towards doing task A. Once the group has started doing A, it will be much harder to convince them to switch, because they will have already paid the starting costs of A. So if Bob wants to make a case for doing B, the best time to do it will be before the group starts doing A. And since Bob knows this, he has an incentive to filibuster for as long as it looks like he will lose the vote.
Thus, multi-agent systems will have a tendency to spend more time doing nothing than dynamically consistent agents.
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:
(HT: Brashman, as posted on HackerNews.)