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.)

With respect, I've always found the dynamic inconsistency explanation silly. Such an analysis feels like one is forcing, in the face of contradictory evidence, to model human beings as rational agents. In other words, you look at a person's behavior, realize that it doesn't follow a time-invariant utility function, and say "Aha! Their utility function just varies with time, in a manner leading to a temporal conflict of interests!" But given sufficient flexibility in utility function, you can model any behavior as that of a utility-maximizing agent. ("Under environmental condition #1, he assigns 1 million utility to taking action A1 at time T_A1, action B1 at time T_B1, etc. and zero utility for other strategies. Under environmental condition #2...")

On the other hand, my personal experience is that my decision of whether to complete some beneficial goal is largely determined by the mental pain associated with it. This mental pain, which is not directly measurable, is strongly dependent on the time of day, my caffeine intake, my level of fear, etc. If you can't measure it, and you were to just look at my actions, this is what you'd say: "Look, some days he cleans his room and some days he doesn't even though the benefit--a room clean for about 1 day--is the same. When he doesn't clean his room, and you ask him why, he says he just really didn't feel like it even though he now wishes he had. Therefore, the utility he is putting assigning to clean room is varying with time. Dynamical inconsistency, QED!" But the real reason is not that my utility function is varying. It's that I find cleaning my room soothing on some days, whereas other days it's torture.

Such an analysis feels like one is forcing, in the face of contradictory evidence, to model human beings as rational agents.

Utility theory is a normative theory of rationality; it's not taken seriously as a descriptive theory anymore. Rationality is about how we should behave, not how we do.

Look, some days he cleans his room and some days he doesn't even though the benefit--a room clean for about 1 day--is the same.

This is a common confusion about the what dynamic inconsistency really means, although I'm now noticing that Wikipedia doesn't explain ... (read more)

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Willpower: not a limited resource?

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Willpower: not a limited resource?

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