Willpower Flashcards
What the hell: How Feeling Bad leads to Giving in
The most commonly used strategies for dealing with stress are those that activate the brain’s reward system
Strategies like guilt and self-criticism only…
make us feel worse which leads to giving in, whenever your feeling stress your brain will point you to what IT thinks will make you happy not what you think
Give an example of how a procrastinator who feels bad about procrastinating effect him
He ends up feeling stressed about the situation which leads to the brain trying to make what it thinks is happy which leads to more procrastination
Under the microscope: The promise of relief
What do you turn to when you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or down? Are you more susceptible to temptation when you are upset? Are you more easily distracted, or more likely to procrastinate? How does feeling bad affect your willpower challenge?
Willpower Experiment: Try a stress-relief strategy that works
According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective stress-relief strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby. (The least effective strategies are gambling, shopping, smoking, drinking, eating, playing video games, surfing the Internet, and watching TV or movies for more than two hours.) The main difference between the strategies that work and the strategies that don’t? Rather than releasing dopamine and relying on the promise of reward, the real stress relievers boost mood-enhancing brain chemicals like serotonin and GABA, as well as the feel-good hormone. oxytocin. They also help shut down the brain’s stress response, reduce stress hormones in the body, and induce the healing relaxation response. Because they aren’t exciting like the dopamine releasers, we tend to underestimate how good they will make us feel. And so we forget about these strategies not because they don’t work, but because when we’re stressed, our brains persistently mis-predict what will make us happy. This means that we’ll often talk ourselves out of doing the very thing that will actually make us feel better. The next time you’re feeling stressed and about to reach for the promise of relief, consider trying a more stress reliever instead.
Explain Stress Relief Catcher
Is there a way to remind your stressed-out self what actually makes you feel better? What encouragement can you create for yourself before you are stressed?
Describe Terror mangagement theory
If you eat this cookie, the terrorists win. We are naturally- terrified when we think about our own deaths. Which leads to an increase of stress and the brains response cycle goes in full circle
Under the microscope: What’s terrifying you?
pay attention to what might be triggering terror management in your own mind. What do you hear or see in the media or online? What new flesh-eating bacteria is going to infect you at your local playground? Where are the killer bees coming from this time? What building exploded, where was the fatal car crash, and who was found dead in their home? (For extra credit, check out what products are advertised in between or alongside the fright tactics. Do they have anything to do with your willpower challenges?) Are there any other scare tactics or warnings you’re exposed to that might be triggering cravings for comfort? Sometimes terror management leads us not into temptation, but procrastination. Many of the most put-off tasks have a whiff of mortality salience about them: making a doctor’s appointment, filling a prescription and taking it when we’re supposed to, taking care of legal documents such as wills, saving for retirement, even throwing out things we’re never going to use again, or clothes we’ll never fit into. If there’s something you’ve been putting off or keep “forgetting” to do, is it possible that you are trying to avoid facing your vulnerability? If so, just seeing the fear can help you make a rational choice— the motivations we understand are always easier to change than the influences we cannot see.
Take a twenty-four-hour break from TV news, talk radio, magazines, or websites that profit from your fear. If the world doesn’t end without you watching every private and global crisis unfold (prediction: It won’t), consider cutting out mindless consumption of these media.
Do it bitch
Describe the What the Hell effect: Why guilt doesn’t work
The moment you experience a setback or a failure and go into guilt mode, for ex. what the hell, i already put it off this long why should i keep going?
Under the microscope: When setbacks happen
pay special attention to how you handle any willpower failure. Do you criticize yourself and tell yourself that you’ll never change? Do you feel like this setback reveals what is wrong with you— that you’re lazy, stupid, greedy, or incompetent? Do you feel hopeless, guilty, ashamed, angry, or overwhelmed? Do you use the setback as an excuse to indulge further?
Which is more effective in motivating you to complete your goals, self-criticism or self-forgiveness
If you think that the key to greater willpower is being harder on yourself, you are not alone. But you are wrong. Study after study shows that self-criticism is consistently associated with less motivation and worse self-control. It is also one of the single biggest predictors of depression, which drains both “I will” power and “I want” power. In contrast, self-compassion— being supportive and kind to yourself, especially in the face of stress and failure— is associated with more motivation and better self-control.
Surprisingly, it’s forgiveness, not guilt, that increases accountability. Researchers have found that taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people more likely to take personal responsibility for the failure than when they take a self-critical point of view. They also are more willing to receive feedback and advice from others, and more likely to learn from the experience.
Willpower experiment: Forgiveness when you fail
Everybody makes mistakes and experiences setbacks. How we handle these setbacks matters more than the fact that they happened. Below is an exercise that psychologists use to help people find a more self-compassionate response to failure. Research shows that taking this point of view reduces guilt but increases personal accountability— the perfect combination to get you back on track with your willpower challenge. Bring to mind a specific time when you gave in to temptation or procrastination, and experiment with taking the following three points of view on that failure. When you experience a setback, you can bring these perspectives to mind to help you avoid a downward spiral of guilt, shame, and giving in again. 1. What are you feeling? As you think about this failure, take a moment to notice and describe how you are feeling. What emotions are present? What are you are feeling in your body? Can you remember how you felt immediately after the failure? How would you describe that? Notice if self-criticism comes up, and if it does, what you say to yourself. The perspective of mindfulness allows you to see what you are feeling without rushing to escape. 2. You’re only human. Everyone struggles with willpower challenges and everyone sometimes loses control. This is just a part of the human condition, and your setback does not mean there is something wrong with you. Consider the truth of these statements. Can you think of other people you respect and care about who have experienced similar struggles and setbacks? This perspective can soften the usual voice of self-criticism and self-doubt.
3. What would you say to a friend? Consider how you would comfort a close friend who experienced the same setback. What words of support would you offer? How would you encourage them to continue pursuing their goal? This perspective will point the way to getting back on track.
We all have the tendency to believe self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try on the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for you, and will encourag e you when you feel discouraged.
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Do it
Describe resolving to feel good, Whats the counter-intuitive side to goal building
Vowing to change fills us with hope. We love to imagine how making the change will transform our lives, and we fantasize about the person we will become.
The bigger the goal, the bigger the burst of hope. And so when we decide to change, it’s tempting to give ourselves some very large assignments. Why set a modest goal when setting a gigantic goal will make us feel even better? Why start small when you can dream big?
Under the microscope: Resolving to feel good
Take a moment to think about your own motivations and expectations for change. Do you only feel motivated to change when you are feeling bad? Is the best part of setting goals the pleasure of imagining how succeeding will change your life? Do you use fantasies of your future self to fix your feelings now, more than you take concrete steps to fix your behavior?
Optimistic Pessimism for successful Resolution
Optimism can make us motivated, but a dash of pessimism can help us succeed. Research shows that predicting how and when you might be tempted to break your vow increases the chances that you will keep a resolution. For your own willpower challenge, ask yourself: When am I most likely to be tempted to give in? How am I most likely to let myself get distracted from my goal? What will I say to myself to give myself permission to procrastinate? When you have such a scenario in mind, imagine yourself in that situation, what it will feel like, and what you might be thinking. Let yourself see how a typical willpower failure unfolds. Then turn this imaginary failure into a willpower success. Consider what specific actions you could take to stick to your resolution. Do you need to remember your motivation? Get yourself away from the temptation? Call a friend for support? Use one of the other willpower strategies you’ve learned? When you have a specific strategy in mind, imagine yourself doing it. Visualize what it will feel like. See yourself succeed. Let this vision of yourself give you the confidence that you will do what it takes to reach your goal. Planning for failure in this way is an act of self-compassion, not self-doubt. When that moment of possible willpower failure hits, you will be ready to put your plan into action.
Optimistic Pessimism for successful Resolution
Optimism can make us motivated, but a dash of pessimism can help us succeed. Research shows that predicting how and when you might be tempted to break your vow increases the chances that you will keep a resolution. For your own willpower challenge, ask yourself: When am I most likely to be tempted to give in? How am I most likely to let myself get distracted from my goal? What will I say to myself to give myself permission to procrastinate? When you have such a scenario in mind, imagine yourself in that situation, what it will feel like, and what you might be thinking. Let yourself see how a typical willpower failure unfolds. Then turn this imaginary failure into a willpower success. Consider what specific actions you could take to stick to your resolution. Do you need to remember your motivation? Get yourself away from the temptation? Call a friend for support? Use one of the other willpower strategies you’ve learned? When you have a specific strategy in mind, imagine yourself doing it. Visualize what it will feel like. See yourself succeed. Let this vision of yourself give you the confidence that you will do what it takes to reach your goal. Planning for failure in this way is an act of self-compassion, not self-doubt. When that moment of possible willpower failure hits, you will be ready to put your plan into action.
Whats the last word for Chapter 6, How feeling bad leads to giving in
To avoid stress-induced willpower failures, we need to discover what really makes us feel better— not the false promise of reward, and not empty promises to change. We need to give ourselves permission to do these things, and to protect ourselves from sources of stress that have nothing to do with our lives. When we do experience setbacks— which we will— we need to forgive those failures, and not use them as an excuse to give in or give up. When it comes to increasing self-control, self-compassion is a far better strategy than beating ourselves up.
Chapter 6 summary
CHAPTER SUMMARY The Idea: Feeling bad leads to giving in, and dropping guilt makes you stronger. Under the Microscope • The promise of relief. What do you turn to when you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or down? • What’s terrifying you? Pay attention to the stress of what you hear or see in the media, online, or from other sources. • When setbacks happen. Do you respond to a willpower failure with guilt and self-criticism? • Resolving to feel good. Do you use fantasies of your future self to fix your feelings now, more than you take concrete steps to fix your behavior? Willpower Experiments • Stress-relief strategies that work. The next time you’re stressed out, try one of the stress-relief strategies that really work, such as exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby. • Forgiveness when you fail. Take a more compassionate perspective on your setbacks to avoid the guilt that leads to giving in again. • Optimistic pessimism for successful resolutions. Predict how and when you might be tempted to break your vow, and imagine a specific plan of action for not giving in.
Describe Delay Discounting
The longer you have to wait for a reward, the less it is worth to you, Delay discounting explains not just why some college kids took two M& M’s instead of six, but why we choose immediate satisfaction at the cost of future happiness.
We take what we want when we want it (now), and we put off until tomorrow whatever we don’t want to face today
Under the Microscope: How are you discounting future rewards?
For your willpower challenge, ask yourself what future rewards do you put on sale each time you give in to temptation or procrastination. What is the immediate payoff for giving in? What is the long-term cost? Is this a fair trade? If the rational you says, “No, it’s a lousy deal!” try to catch the moment you reverse your preferences. What are you thinking and feeling that lets you put the future on sale?
Describe Bounded rationality
We’re rational until we aren’t. We will be perfectly rational when everything is in theory, but when the temptation is real, the brain shifts into reward-seeking mode to make sure we don’t miss out. This leads to bounded willpower - we have self control until we need it
However the good news about Bounded rationality is?
It has a narrow window of opportunity. to really overwhelm our prefrontal cortes, the reward must be available now, and for maximum effect - you need to see it. Think Snack Bar that is open instead of close
Willpower Experiment:Wait ten minutes
Ten minutes might not seem like much time to wait for something you want, but neuroscientists have discovered that it makes a big difference in how the brain processes a reward. When immediate gratification comes with a mandatory ten-minute delay, the brain treats it like a future reward. The promise-of-reward system is less activated, taking away the powerful biological impulse to choose immediate gratification. When the brain compares a cookie you have to wait ten minutes for to a longer-term reward, like losing weight, it no longer shows the same lopsided bias toward the sooner reward. It’s the “immediate” in immediate gratification that hijacks your brain and reverses your preferences. For a cooler, wiser brain, institute a mandatory ten-minute wait for any temptation. If, in ten minutes, you still want it, you can have it— but before the ten minutes are up, bring to mind the competing long-term reward that will come with resisting temptation. If possible, create some physical (or visual) distance as well. If your willpower challenge requires “I will” power, you can still use the ten-minute rule to help you overcome the temptation to procrastinate. Flip the rule to “Do ten minutes, then you can quit.” When your ten minutes are up, give yourself permission to stop— although you may find that once you get started, you’ll want to keep going.
When “never again” seems too overwhelming a willpower challenge to tackle, use the ten-minute delay rule to start strengthening your self-control.
Willpower Experiment: Lower your discount rate
Fortunately, a person’s discount rate is not an immutable law of physics. It can be lowered just by changing how you think about your choices. Imagine I give you a $ 100 check that is good in ninety days. Then I try to bargain you down: Would you be willing to trade it in for a $ 50 check that is good today? Most people would not. However, if people are first given the $ 50 check, and then asked if they’d be willing to exchange it for a $ 100 delayed reward, most will not. The reward you start with is the one you want to keep. One reason is that most people are loss-averse— that is, we really don’t like to lose something we already have. Losing $ 50 makes people more unhappy than getting $ 50 makes them happy. When you think about a larger, future reward first and consider trading it in for a smaller, immediate reward, it registers as a loss. But when you start with the immediate reward (the $ 50 check in your hand) and consider the benefits of delaying gratification for a larger reward, it also feels like a loss. Economists have found that you will come up with more reasons to justify choosing whichever reward you think about first. People who start by asking themselves, “Why should I take the check for $ 50?” will think of more reasons to support immediate gratification (“ I can really use the money,” “Who knows if the $ 100 check will even be good in ninety days?”). People who start by asking themselves, “Why should I take the check for $ 100?” will think of more reasons to support delaying gratification (“ That will buy twice as many groceries,” “I’m going to need money just as much in ninety days as I do now”). Future-reward discounting drops dramatically when people think about the future reward first. You can use this quirk of decision making to resist immediate gratification, whatever the temptation: 1. When you are tempted to act against your long-term interests, frame the choice as giving up the best possible long-term reward for whatever the immediate gratification is. 2. Imagine that long-term reward as already yours. Imagine your future self enjoying the fruits of your self-control. 3. Then ask yourself: Are you willing to give that up in exchange for whatever fleeting pleasure is tempting you now?
Willpower Experiment: Recommit your future self
Ready to put the squeeze on your future tempted self? This week, commit yourself from a clear distance. Pick one of the following strategies and apply it to your willpower challenge. 1. Create a new default. Make choices in advance and from a clear distance, before your future self is blinded by temptation. For example, you can pack a healthy lunch before you’re hungry and salivating over take-out menus. You can schedule and prepay for anything from personal training sessions to dental visits. For your willpower challenge, what can you do to make it easier for your future self to act on your rational preferences? 2. Make it more difficult to reverse your preferences. Like Cortés sinking his ships, find a way to eliminate the easiest route to giving in. Get rid of temptation in your home or office. Don’t carry your credit cards when you go shopping, and only bring as much cash as you want to spend. Put your alarm clock across the room so you’ll have to get out of bed to turn it off. None of these things make it impossible to change your mind— but they will at least make it damn inconvenient. What can you do that would put a delay or roadblock between your feelings of temptation and your ability to act on them? 3. Motivate your future self. There is no shame in using a carrot or a stick to nudge yourself toward long-term health and happiness. So argues Yale economist Ian Ayres, who created the innovative website stickk .com to help people precommit their future selves to change. His site emphasizes the stick— finding a way to make immediate gratification more painful if you give in. Whether it’s taking bets on whether you’ll gain weight (something Ayres did, to great success) or donating money to a charity if you don’t meet your predetermined goals, you can add a “tax” to the immediate reward. (Ayres even recommends choosing an “anti-charity”— an organization you don’t support— so the cost of failure is more painful.) The reward’s value may stay the same, but the cost of giving in makes
One reason this intervention works is that the participants are held accountable by someone who supports their goals. Is there someone you can share your goals with and call on for support when you’re feeling tempted?
Meet your future self
It is one of the most puzzling but predictable mental errors humans make: We think about our future selves like different people. We often idealize them, expecting our future selves to do what our present selves cannot manage. Sometimes we mistreat them, burdening them with the consequences of our present selves’ decisions. Sometimes we simply misunderstand them, failing to realize that they will have the same thoughts and feelings as our present selves. However we think of our future selves, rarely do we see them as fully us. Princeton University psychologist Emily Pronin has shown that this failure of imagination leads us to treat our future selves like strangers.
let the present self to take care of his future self
Under the microscope: are you waiting for the future you?
Is there an important change or task you’re putting off, hoping that a future you with more willpower will show up? Do you optimistically overcommit yourself to responsibilities, only to find yourself overwhelmed by
impossible demands? Do you talk yourself out of something today, telling yourself that you’ll feel more like it tomorrow?
Why does the future self seem different?
When reflecting on the future self, the brain’s activation is identical to when it is considering the traits of another person. 25 It’s as if we are observing a person from the outside to decide what is true about them, rather than looking within to decide what is true of ourselves. when it comes to getting other people to commit their money, time, or effort, you can take advantage of the future-self bias by asking them to commit far in advance.
Willpower Experiment: Meet your future self in order to build a high future self continuity.
You can help yourself make wiser choices by sending yourself to the future (DeLorean not required 27). Below are three ideas for making the future feel real, and for getting to know your future self. Pick one that appeals to you and try it out this week. 1. Create a Future Memory. Neuroscientists at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany have shown that imagining the future helps people delay gratification. You don’t even need to think about the future rewards of delaying gratification— just thinking about the future seems to work. For example, if you’re trying to decide between starting a project now or putting it off, imagine yourself grocery shopping next week, or at a meeting you have scheduled. When you picture the future, the brain begins to think more concretely and immediately about the consequences of your present choices. The more real and vivid the future feels, the more likely you are to make a decision that your future self won’t regret. 2. Send a Message to Your Future Self. The founders of FutureMe.org have created a way for people to e-mail their future selves. Since 2003, they’ve been holding on to e-mails people write to themselves, and delivering them on a future date chosen by the writer. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to think about what your future self will be doing, and how he or she will feel about the choices you’re making now? Describe to your future self what you are going to do now to help yourself meet your long-term goals. What are your hopes for your future self? What do you think you will be like? You can also imagine your future self looking back on your present self. What would your future self thank you for, if you were able to commit to it today? Psychologist Hal Ersner-Hershfield says that even if you just briefly contemplate what you’d write in such a letter, you will feel more connected to your future self. 3. Imagine Your Future Self. Studies show that imagining your future self can increase your present self ’s willpower. One experiment asked couch potatoes to imagine either a hoped-for future self who exercised regularly and enjoyed excellent health and energy, or a feared future self who was inactive and suffering the health consequences. Both visualizations got them off the couch, and they were exercising more frequently two months later than a control group that did not imagine a future self. For your willpower challenge, can you imagine a hoped-for future self who is committed to the change, and reaping the benefits? Or a future self suffering the consequences of not changing? Let yourself daydream in vivid detail, imagining how you will feel, how you will look, and what pride, gratitude, or regret you will have for your past self ’s choices.
Under the Microscope: Are you too farsighted for your own good?
Do you have a hard time taking a break from work because there is always more to do? Do you feel so guilty or anxious about spending money that you find it hard to purchase anything beyond the absolute basics? Do you ever look back at how you have spent your time and money, and wish you had been more focused on your present happiness instead of always putting it off? If so, take the willpower experiments in this chapter and turn them into strategies for self-indulgence. (And try not to put if off, will you?)
What is a summary for Chapter 7 the economics of willpower
When we contemplate the future, our imaginations fail us in predictable ways. Far-off rewards seem less compelling, so we choose immediate gratification. We fail to predict how we will be tempted or distracted, so we fail to protect ourselves from abandoning our goals. To make wiser decisions, we need to better understand and support our future selves. And we need to remember that the future self who receives the consequences of our present self’s actions is, indeed, still us, and will very much appreciate the effort.
Main idea Our inability to clearly see the future clearly leads us into temptation and procrastination.
Both bad habits and positive changes can…
Spread from person to person like germs, and nobody is completely immune
Under the microscope: your social network
Not every willpower challenge is the result of a social “infection,” but with most challenges, there is a social influence. For your own willpower challenge, consider: • Do others in your social network share your willpower challenge? • Looking back, did you pick up the habit from a friend or family member? • Are there certain people you’re more likely to indulge with? • Have other people in your network recently attempted to improve on this willpower challenge too?
Why do salespeople,managers, and politicians intentionally mimic other people’s postures
It makes it easier to influence the person they are mirroring. This is our tendency to behave like our social influences to fit in.
under the microscope: Who are you mirroring?
This week, keep your eyes open for any evidence that you are mirroring other people’s behavior— especially behavior related to your willpower challenge. Is a common indulgence the social glue that’s holding a relationship together? Do you go overboard when others around you are doing the same?
Willpower experiment: Strengthen your immune system
We don’t always catch other people’s goals. Sometimes seeing someone else give in to temptation can actually enhance our self-control. When you are firmly committed to a goal (e.g., losing weight), but aware that you have a conflicting goal (e.g., enjoying a deep-dish pizza), seeing someone do something that conflicts with your strongest goal will put your brain on high alert. It will activate your dominant goal even more strongly and start generating strategies to help you stick with it. Psychologists call this counterac-tive control, but you can think of it as an immune response to anything that threatens your self-control. The best way to strengthen your immune response to other people’s goals is to spend a few minutes at the beginning of your day thinking about your own goals, and how you could be tempted to ignore them. Like a vaccine that protects you from other people’s germs, reflecting on your own goals will reinforce your intentions and help you avoid goal contagion.
Importantly, we don’t even need to see people in action. Like germs that linger on a doorknob long after a sick person passed through, an action can be passed on to us when we merely see evidence that others have done.
Willpower experiment: Cath self control
Research shows that thinking about someone with good self-control can increase your own willpower. Is there someone who can serve as a willpower role model for your challenge? Someone who has struggled with the same challenge and succeeded, or someone who exemplifies the kind of self-control you would like to have? (In my class, the most frequently nominated willpower role models are accomplished athletes, spiritual leaders, and politicians, though family members and friends may provide even more motivation, as you’ll see in a little bit.) When you need a little extra willpower, bring your role model to mind. Ask yourself: What would this willpower wonder do?
Why are people you like more contagious than strangers?
complex contagion . It is not enough to come into contact with a person who is a “carrier” of the behavior. Your relationship to that person matters.
diseases— it’s as if your immune system could only defend itself against a virus you caught from someone you didn’t know or didn’t like.
To stretch the immune system analogy a little further, we could say that our immune system only rejects the goals and behavior of other people if it recognizes those other people as “not us.”
Under the microscope: Who are you most likely to catch something from?
Take a few moments to consider who your “close others” are. Who do you spend the most time with? Who do you respect? Who do you feel most similar to? Whose opinion matters most to you? Who do you trust or care about the most? Can you think of any behaviors— helpful or harmful— that you’ve picked up from them, or that they have caught from you?
Describe the scenario “one of the tribe”
example of what psychologists call social proof. When the rest of our tribe does something, we tend to think it’s a smart thing to do. What other people want must be good. What other people think must be true. If we don’t yet have an opinion, we might as well trust the tribe.
Social proof can strengthen self-control when we believe that doing the right thing (or the harder thing) is the norm.
Describe social proof and how it is used compared to a good society and a bad society you don’t want to be a part of
Just convince people it’s the habit of a group they would never want to be a member of.
These two interventions demonstrate the importance of social proof for supporting behavior change. We may be willing to give up our vices and cultivate new virtues if we believe that it will more firmly secure us a spot in our most cherished tribe.
When it comes to social proof, what we think other people do matters even more than what they actually do.
Under the microscope: But Ma, Everyone else is doing it
Social proof can interfere with change if we believe that everyone else does whatever behavior we are trying to change. Do you ever tell yourself that your willpower challenge is no big deal, because it’s the norm? Do you remind yourself of all the people you know who share the habit? If so, you may want to challenge this perception. The best way to do this is to find the folks who share the behavior you aspire to. Look for a new “tribe” you could join. It could be a support group, a class, a local club, an online community, or even subscribing to a magazine that supports your goals. Surrounding yourself with people who share your commitment to your goals will make it feel like the norm.
Describe the “should” power
When contemplating a choice, we often imagine ourselves the object of other people’s evaluations. Studies show that this can provide a powerful boost to self-control. People who imagine how proud they will feel when they accomplish a goal— from quitting smoking to donating blood— are more likely to follow through and succeed. Anticipated disapproval works too: People are more likely to use condoms when they imagine feeling ashamed if others knew that they had unprotected sex.
David Desteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University, argues that social emotions like pride and shame have a quicker and more direct influence over our choices than rational arguments about long-term costs and benefits. Desteno calls this hot self-control. Usually we think of self-control as the triumph of cool reason over hot impulses, but pride and shame rely on the emotional brain, not the logical prefrontal cortex.
The limits of shame
As a preventive measure, shame may work. But once the deed is done, shame is more likely to inspire self-sabotage than self-control.
The power of pride
One reason pride helped is that it took people’s minds off the cake. In contrast, shame paradoxically triggered anticipatory pleasure, and the participants reported more temptation-related thoughts like “It smells so good,” and “It will taste great.” Another reason boils down to biology: Laboratory studies reveal that guilt decreases heart rate variability, our physiological reserve of willpower. Pride, on the other hand, sustains and even increases this reserve.
Go public with your willpower challenges. If you believe that others are rooting for your success and keeping an eye on your behavior, you’ll be more motivated to do the right thing.
The power of pride
Put the basic human need for approval to good use by imagining how proud you will feel when you succeed at your willpower challenge. Bring to mind someone in your tribe— a family member, friend, coworker, teacher— whose opinion matters to you, or who would be happy for your success. When you make a choice you’re proud of, share it with your tribe by updating your Facebook status, Tweeting about it, or— for the Luddites among us— sharing the story in person.
Willpower Experiment: Make it a group project
You don’t have to conquer your willpower challenge alone. Is there a friend, family member, or coworker who could join you in your willpower goals? You don’t have to have the same goals; just checking in and encouraging each other can provide a boost of social support to your self-control. If you like your social support with a touch of competition, enlist others in a willpower face-off. Who will be the first to finish a procrastinated task, or the person to save the most money in one month?
Describe The social influence on willpower, chapter summary
To a remarkable degree, our brains incorporate the goals, beliefs, and actions of other people into our decisions. When we are with other people, or simply thinking about them, they become one more “self” in our minds competing for self-control. The flip side is also true: Our own actions influence the actions of countless other people, and each choice we make for ourselves can serve as inspiration or temptation for others.
The Idea: Self-control is influenced by social proof, making both willpower and temptation contagious.
Describe the limits of the “I won’t” power
“I won’t” power fails miserably when it’s applied to the inner world of thoughts and feelings. As we enter that inner world, we will find we need a new definition of self-control— one that makes room for letting go of control.
Describe ironic rebound
You push a thought away, and— BAM!— it boomerangs back.
