Via a very interesting post on willpower from the blog Psychology of Wellbeing comes a link to a very interesting paper on willpower and ego depletion (PDF). Both are well worth a full read, but here’s the money quote from the latter (cites removed, emphasis mine) suggesting that willpower may not be as limited as we think it is:
The present research suggests that implicit theories changed how people responded given their level of felt exhaustion on the initial task. People led to adopt a limited-resource theory performed worse the more exhausted they felt. But for people led to adopt a nonlimited-resource theory, there was no relationship between perceived exhaustion and subsequent performance. For them, exhaustion was not a sign to reduce effort.
Taken together, the results suggest that in some cases, ego depletion may result not from a true lack of resources after an exhausting task, but from people’s beliefs about their resources. We do not question that biological resources contribute to successful self-control. But these resources may be less limited than is commonly supposed. …
It is important that people understand that their own beliefs about willpower as a limited or nonlimited resource can affect their self-regulation.
I suspect that this same phenomenon may be at work in why abstention is useful as an addiction tool.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health, & food policy. And cats! 
I love this quote. It speaks to me and feeds my continued resolve. It’s also very positive (and hopeful), vs. negative and disspiriting. And if it takes ego and self-esteem to make it work, I have enough.Thanks for posting the quote of the day.
Thanks Dan!
Thanks, Beth, for this quote and link, which I will read in its entirety when I can find a few minutes away from the fall harvest.
This topic (beliefs about willpower) is complex, and, moreover, one that I find difficult or impossible to discuss with many people because, apparently, the cultural (socially constructed) dichotomy between one’s thinking patterns (including one’s beliefs) and associated neurochemical processes has become reified (like hardened cement!) to the point that an individual’s beliefs about *how our bodies work* frequently take on religious-like proportions—and thus minimize or eliminate (a priori) an individual’s options for change. (One’s beliefs quickly become justifications for passivity or for acceptance of the status quo.)
I’m not excluding myself from stumbles of this nature!
I understand the logical elegance, for example, in stating (and in believing), “Fat storage is entirely driven by endocrine physiology”—except that kind of conceptualization legitimates a reductionist view (such as the belief, for instance, control equates with power) and therefore limits the ways we are able to imagine more complex mosaics of meaning—synergistic interrelationships between thoughts, actions and simultaneous neurochemical responses.
For example, the psychological construct known as “learned helplessness” may seem entirely (and self-evidently) related to processes resembling most other types of learning. That particularly common initial word (“learned”) in the phrase is, after all, the same linguistic symbol. And “helpless”, as a seemingly straightforward idea, frequently corresponds in dominant discourses with the concept of “powerless.” There is a world(view) of difference, however, obscured within those two joined metaphors (“learned” and “helplessness”), which users of language (English, specifically) tend to overlook or discount as irrelevant.
Finally, no doubt, I will be mulling over the notions of “biological resources” in relation to “self-regulation” while I bust my butt (mostly squatting for hours on end) on my current fall project. The metaphors used to construct “resources”, alone, will have my brain synapses singing!
Seconded re the complexity! Or as I like to use in the context of obesity, a wicked problem. After I posted this, I got an email pointing to another study on self-regulation (speaking of reductionism and biological processes).
This is one of the reasons I like to try and view things through an evolutionary lens where possible. So, for example, I do not think that the inability to stop after one Oreo or one Lays is necessarily a reflection of addiction, when it might conceivably be some combination of an instinctual response to calorie-dense foods and a belief system that says “I’m addicted to these foods so I cannot stop.”
It’s also why I have become so enamored of the connection concept you’ve been writing about here as well. I’ve struggled with the often promoted idea that meaning and purpose in life is best derived from serving others. When one is struggling, the idea of spending energy on others is challenging. But it occurs to me that what’s valuable about this kind of activity is that it may be rewarding because it meets this deep-seated need to be valuable in community.
Anyways, keep ‘em coming! I too am juggling with the upcoming move, but am really looking forward to things settling down after the holidays!
The phrase “mind-body connection,” which is usually used to discuss some complex issue, such as willpower, is a similar linguistic trick. By (logically and linguistically) separating mind and body, then (similarly) “connecting” them, the underlying understanding is that-unless they are “connected” by the surrounding discussion, they are otherwise disconnected in a way that, as far as I can tell, is impossible-but then this presents its own sticky wicket.
I always feel pretty guilty about thinking that if someone makes food choices that deprive the body of the substrates needed in the neurochemical soup that allows the brain function, that this person’s functionality-belief systems, intellectual capacity, memory function, mood, etc, along with all other cellular level activity-are compromised. And although I acknowledge that we may all be operating at some compromised capacity (impacted by environmental toxins, genetic/epigenetic effects, and more), it still seems a terribly elitist and judgmental notion-but one that nevertheless persists. Who am I to say that a B12 deficiency is causing a person’s irrational (to me) clinging to a nutritional approach that (logically speaking) is deficient in (at least) this aspect? We don’t know everything (I for sure don’t) and maybe this person is getting B12 in an appropriate and usable form in a way I don’t know about or understand. While the insistence on veganism might seem to me like a manifestation of a B12 deficiency that (logically) would arise from that lifestyle choice, maybe it is just a reasonable response to my own biased thinking. Is someone’s strong religious belief a result of a deep connection with something I don’t understand, or a symptom of a temporal lobe dysfunction, or both, or something else entirely?
I don’t know how productive thinking about these things is, but at the very least I am aware of how my own perceptions limit my ability to understand the perceptions of others.
This makes me think of cyclists who compete in races like the Tour de France. Cycling is often said to be the toughest sport in the world because of the long distances, gruelling climbs, terrible weather and frequent crashes. However the ones who compete near the front of the peloton perform unbelievable feats of willpower and move far beyond what anyone would think possible. Often what separates a good cyclist from a great one is the willingness to push yourself beyond the beyond, and discover that you have resources on the other side, that you did not know where there: http://marchwinds.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/bicycle-love-4-2/
Thanks for posting this!
Very good point. Back when I was doing BBS, I quickly came to realize that one of the benefits of having a trainer (aside from safety) was having someone show you that, yes, you could actually get one, maybe two more reps in after the point when your brain was telling you to stop ;).