Zbyszek Ryzak 's List: Science of willpower

• "Participants who were instructed to tighten their muscles, regardless of which muscles they tightened -- hand, finger, calf, or biceps -- while trying to exert self-control demonstrated greater ability to withstand the pain, consume the unpleasant medicine, attend to the immediately disturbing but essential information, or overcome tempting foods," the authors write.
• The authors found that the muscle tightening only helped when the choice aligned with the participants' goals (for example, to have a healthier lifestyle). They also found that the tightening of muscles only helped at the moment people faced the self-control dilemma. (If they did it beforehand, they felt depleted by the time it was time to make a choice.)
• "The mind and the body are so closely tied together, merely clenching muscles can also activate willpower," the authors write. "Thus simply engaging in these bodily actions, which often result from an exertion of willpower, can serve as a non-conscious source to recruit willpower, facilitate self-control, and improve consumer wellbeing."

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• Leahey added that the current study suggests self-control, or willpower, is like "building a muscle."

  "The more you 'exercise' it by eating a low fat diet, working out even when you don't feel like it, and going to group meetings when you'd rather stay home, the more you'll increase and strengthen your self-control 'muscle' and quite possibly lose more weight and improve your health," adds Leahey.

• The inability to control cravings may reinforce a vicious cycle that weakens the self-control muscle," the researchers note. "Yielding to temptation today may reduce the ability to resist cravings tomorrow. Thus, individuals who gain weight may have increased risk for additional weight gain through changes in their personality."

• Participants lapsed just over 50 percent of the time when tempted, and were especially vulnerable at night. They were more likely to give in to alcoholic temptations than to eat a sugary snack or to overindulge. Their willpower was also influenced by the presence of others, regardless of whether a dietary temptation was unexpected or whether the dieter went looking for something to eat. The stronger the dietary temptation, the more likely a participant was to lapse. Not surprisingly, most participants reported that they were more aware of their eating behavior while keeping their diet diaries.

• person's mindset and personal beliefs about willpower determine how long and how well they'll be able to work on a tough mental exercise.
• "If you think of willpower as something that's biologically limited, you're more likely to be tired when you perform a difficult task," said Veronika Job, the paper's lead author. "But if you think of willpower as something that is not easily depleted, you can go on and on.

• avoiding temptation may increase your chances of success compared to relying on willpower alon
• The researchers compared the effectiveness of willpower versus voluntarily restricting access to temptations, called 'precommitment'. (Examples of precommitment include avoiding purchasing unhealthy food and putting money in savings accounts with hefty withdrawal fees.)
• Our research suggests that the most effective way to beat temptations is to avoid facing them in the first place."
• before the tempting option became available, they had the ability to prevent themselves from ever encountering the temptation.
• t precommitment specifically activates the frontopolar cortex, a region that is involved in thinking about the future. Additionally, when the frontopolar cortex is engaged during precommitment, it increases its communication with a region that plays an important role in willpower, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. By identifying the brain networks involved in willpower and precommitment, the research opens new avenues for understanding failures of self-control.

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• stronger the level of unconscious motivation, the longer the self-control would prevail.
• Subjects had to use their willpower in both situations: In the first part, to play an unpleasant character in front of a video camera, and in the second, to suppress the desire to laugh
• strength of the participants' drive for power (their inner motivation to influence and control others). Th
• "Again, it was clear that those with a strong achievement motivation did not drain their willpower resources and so performed better overall," s

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• These studies provide evidence that aroused implicit motives regulate how much self-control is exerted when performing motive-related tasks that require self-control.

• There are things that you can do to blunt this effect, so that you can maintain your self control for longer. Get yourself motivated, do some meditation, or simply knock back some glucose.
• asked to spend 5 minutes either to pray or to think freely about anything they wanted.
• suppress all emotions and control their facial expressions
• people how laughed freely made fewer errors.
• So did people who suppressed laughter - so long as they prayed first. But the error rate shot up in those who suppressed their laughter and didn't pray before hand.
• effect was the same in atheists as it was in believers.
• who prayed were motivated to work harder at the task (perhaps to live up to the expectations or othe
• suggest that various other activities could lead to similar findings (e.g., talking to a human bein
• So, if prayer does improve self control, it's seems as though it does it by hooking into a regular activity. Quite what, that activity is, we don't know!

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• • Ogólnie - będą w stanie wyczerpania ego stawiamy sobie inne cele.
• how self-regulatory resources affect goal appraisals,
• when low in self-regulatory resources, individuals endorse statements that rationalize either inaction or less effortful goal pursuit.
• personal goals,
• resource-depleted participants describe their goals as less urgent and less consequential.
• weight loss goals
• broader societal goal of environmental conservation
• depletion alters cognition in ways that may excuse the well-documented decrease in behavioral pursuit that arises from resource depletion.

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• willpower can indeed be quite limited — but only if you believe it is.
• willpower is self-renewing — that when you work hard, you’re energized to work more; that when you’ve resisted one temptation, you can better resist the next one — then people successfully exert more willpower. It turns out that willpower is in your head.
• we found that people who believed that willpower was not limited continued to perform well on the second task, making few mistakes, even after facing the difficult initial task. They were not “depleted” and kept on doing well.
• Sometimes, working on a strenuous mental task can make you feel energized for further challenging activities,” they kept on working and performing well with no sign of depletion. T
• During stressful times, like final-exam week, students who believed that willpower was not limited reported eating less junk food and procrastinating less than students who did not share that belief. They also showed more academic growth, earning better grades that term than their “pessimistic” counterparts.
• Furthermore, when we taught college students that willpower was not so limited, they showed similar increases in willpower. They reported procrastinating only once or twice a week instead of the two to three times a week reported by students in a control condition, and they cut down on excess spending, going beyond their budgets less than once a week instead of once or twice a week.
• People who think that willpower is limited are on the lookout for signs of fatigue. When they detect fatigue, they slack off. People who get the message that willpower is not so limited may feel tired, but for them this is no sign to give up — it’s a sign to dig deeper and find more resources.
• Sugar helps people only when they think that willpower is sharply limited. It’s not sugar we need; it’s a change in mind-set.
• To be sure, willpower is not completely unlimited.

  • Czyli wszystko zależy od tego, w jaki sposób interpretujesz zmęczenia - czy jest to dla ciebie sygnał by się poddać, czy też sygnał, żeby sięgnąć po głębsze pokłady zasobów. 
    Prawdopodobnie mamy w sobie tyle pokładów energii, że nie ma problemów z tym, żeby wytrwać do końca dnia. Istotna jest zatem nasza reakcja na zmęczenie. 

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• "We believe that people who believe willpower is limited are always looking for cues about their resources — 'Am I tired? Am I hungry? Do I need a boost?' — and feel that they can't work unless they're constantly replenished," Dweck told LiveScience.
• Past studies may have shown that willpower can be depleted because most people in society tend to believe willpower is a limited resource, Dweck added.
• "We teach them about willpower — that it is a self-generating thing, that the longer you wait and the harder you try, the more you can. And it seems to be effective," Dweck said.

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• The children were brought into the clinic and they stayed for several hours and the staff observed them, and rated things such as low frustration tolerance, being not persistent toward a goal when they were given a task, needing constant supervision from an adult to keep them motivated, being restless, failing to pay attention, not planning ahead…
• The staff just rated their behaviors on a simple checklist and it took about two minutes.
• the parent hands them a modest amount that has to be managed through the week, sits with the child and takes the time to anticipate what’s going to be coming up next week, what the child would like to do and helps them to make choices and understand the limited amount of money they have. I

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• Being too optimistic could harm weight loss efforts.
• Patients who were able to improve their self-awareness through counselling were more likely to lose weight than those who were not. Optimism and self-orientation characteristics improved for most patients after the 6-month program, although this was not related to weight loss. In fact, patients who started the program with high levels of self-orientation and optimistic characteristics were less likely to lose weight.
• This result supports previous findings that some negative emotion has a positive effect on behavior modification because patients care more about their disease.

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• fewer than one in five adults (16 percent) reported being very successful at making health-related improvements such as losing weight
• (20 percent), starting a regular exercise program (15 percent), eating a healthier diet (10 percent), and reducing stress (7 percent)¹
• Despite these efforts, about three-quarters (78 percent) of those who made a health-related resolution say significant obstacles block them from making progress, such as willpower (33 percent), making changes alone (24 percent), and experiencing too much stress (20 percent).
• “Lasting lifestyle and behavior changes don’t happen overnight. Willpower is a learned skill, not an inherent trait. We all have the capacity to develop skills to make changes last,” said Katherine C. Nordal, PhD,
• “Is it will or is it skill?” asks health psychologist and past president of APA’s Division of Health Psychology Dr. Karina Davidson. “The reality is that, with the right guidance, people can build and strengthen the skills they need to make even the toughest lifestyle changes,” she said.
• March 4, 2010, among 2,073 U.S. adults age 18+, of whom 1,104 made a New Year’s resolution

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