Willpower is a book by psychology professor Roy Baumeister written with New York Times reporter John Tierney. The book describes research the science of self-control. What I found most interesting about the book is that while Dr. Baumeister is a defender of free will, the book actually reinforced my skepticism regarding free will. Comments in the book about how Chinese people are less genetically susceptible to ADHD, how judges make dramatically different decisions depending on how much glucose is in their system, hypoglycemia among criminals, failures of self-control during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, how men take greater risks after seeing photos of attractive women, how mirrors make people more responsible, and the finding having a father in the home was the best predictor of self-control indicate that genetic and environmental factors dramatically influence a person’s life. Plus, it takes a certain IQ and level of conscientiousness to read a book about willpower in the first place.
The book is still excellent and has many useful tips. This post has some notes on the research studies discussed in the book.
• A study found that people spend about a quarter of their waking hours resisting desires.
• People who had shown the most willpower at age four went on to get better grades and test scores in college. Children who had managed to delay gratification for fifteen minutes scored 210 points higher on the SAT than the ones who had given in after the first half minute.
• When researchers compared students’ grades with nearly three dozen personality traits, self-control turned out to be the only trait that predicted a college student’s grade-point average better than chance.
• In workplaces, managers scoring high in self-control were rated more favorably by their subordinates as well as by their peers.
• People with poor self-control are likelier to hit their partners and to commit a variety of other crimes.
• A study of prisoners who were tracked for years after their release found that the ones with low self-control were most likely to commit more crimes and return to prison.
• A long-term study that tracked children in New Zealand from birth until age thirty-two found that the children with high self-control grew up into adults who had better physical health, including lower rates of obesity and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. Among those with the lowest levels of self-control, more than 40 percent had a criminal conviction by the age of thirty-two, compared with just 12 percent of the people who had been toward the high end of the self-control distribution in their youth.
• A study found that people who had depleted their willpower by watching a movie of animals suffering took longer to respond during a task and made more mistakes. An EEG showed that ego depletion causes a slowdown in the anterior cingulate cortex, the brain area that’s crucial to self-control.
• A study found that while ego depleted persons didn’t show any single telltale emotion, they did react more strongly to events.
• A study that used beepers to query people about their desires throughout the day found that the more willpower people expended, the more likely they became to yield to the next temptation that came along.
• When people in laboratory experiments exercise mental self-control, their pulse becomes more erratic. People whose normal pulse is relatively variable do better on laboratory tests of perseverance than do people with steadier heartbeats.
• Experiments have shown that chronic physical pain leaves people with a perpetual shortage of willpower because their minds are so depleted by the struggle to ignore the pain.
• Research has found that people with hypoglycemia are more likely to have trouble concentrating and controlling their negative emotions when provoked.
• A study found below-average glucose levels in 90 percent of the juvenile delinquents recently taken into custody.
• Studies have found that people with hypoglycemia were more likely to be convicted of a wide variety of offenses: traffic violations, public profanity, shoplifting, destruction of property, exhibitionism, embezzlement, arson, spouse abuse, and child abuse.
• A study in Finland found that the response to a glucose test predicted with greater than 80 percent accuracy whih convicts would go on to commit violent crimes.
• A study of dieters found that ego depletion caused an increase in activity in the nucleus accumbens and a corresponding decrease in the amygdala.
• In the lab, students who have just performed a self-control task eat more sweet snacks but not more salty snacks.
• During the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, the average woman eats about 810 calories at lunch (about 170 calories more than what she eats at lunch during the rest of the month).
• During the luteal phase, women spend more money and make more impulsive purchases than at other times. They smoke more cigarettes and drink more alcohol.
• Inside women’s prisons, disciplinary problems based on breaking prison rules are highest among women who are at the luteal phase of their cycle.
• When researchers have given sugar tables to smokers trying to quit, sometimes the extra glucose has led to higher rates of success, particularly when the sugar tablets were combined with other therapies, like the nicotine patch.
• Experiments involving thousands of teenagers in correctional institutions found that replacing sugary foods and refined carbohydrates with fruits and vegetables led to a sharp decline in escape attempts, violence, and other problems.
• A study found that workers who were not getting enough sleep were more prone than others to engage in unethical conduct on the job.
• In a laboratory experiment offering test takers the chance to win cash, students who had not slept enough were more likely than others to take advantage of an opportunity to cheat.
• A series of studies found that having conflicting goals leads to negative rumination, less accomplishment, fewer positive emotions, more negative emotions, and greater levels of illness.
• A study of heroin addicts found that the typical addict contemplated the future only for the next nine days, whereas the typical person in the control group thought about their plans for the next four and a half years.
• Studies of heavy users of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs (but not marijuana) found that they prefer risky strategies with quick big payoffs/
• A study found that people with high incomes tend to look further into the future than people with low incomes.
• A study in the Netherlands found that high school boys who cared more about long-term objectives tended to do better in school. Those who were relatively indifferent to such distal goals tended to be worse students.
• A study of students found that monthly planning led to greater improvements in study habits and attitudes than daily planning.
A study found that shoppers who had made the most decisions during their shopping trip gave up the quickest on a math test.
• A study of a parole board found that the prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about 65 percent of the time. Those who appeared late in the day won parole less than 10 percent of the time. Prisoners who appeared right before the judges had a mid-morning food break had only about a 15 percent chance of getting parole, whereas the ones who came right after the food break had about a 65 percent chance.
• Studies of people making decisions have found that being confronted with tough decisions leads to greater fatigue and a less enjoyable shopping experience.
• A study found that men who looked at photos of attractivewomen shifted toward getting an immediate reward instead of waiting for a larger payoff in the future.
• Modern DNA research has revealed that most men in the past did not leave a line of descendants – their odds of reproducing were only half as high as the typical woman’s. Men today are therefore descended from the minority of men who managed to reproduce, and their brains seem primed for a quick response to any opportunity to improve their reproductive odds.
• When people are placed in front of a mirror or told their actions are being filmed, they work harder at laboratory tasks and give more valid answers to questionnaires.
• Research showed that people can make themselves feel good by comparing themselves to the “average person” – who we all like to think is inferior to ourselves.
• A study of college students who were instructed to correct their posture whenever they thought about it during the day found that this simple action led to significantly higher improvements in self-control.
• A study found that exercising self-control in one area seemed to improve self-control in all areas of life.
• An experiment found that people who answered questions in a clean room did better on measures of self-control than people in a messy room.
• A study found that people were more likely to give to charity via a clean and well-designed web site than on a messy web site.
• A study of men who were ordered to attend therapy for alcohol abuse found that the ones who were better at getting support from other people ended up abstaining more frequently and doing les overall drinking.
• An analysis of more than three dozen studies found that religiously active people were 25 percent more likely than nonreligious people to remain alive.
• An analysis of hundreds of studies of religion and self-control found that religion promotes family values and social harmony, reduces people’s inner conflicts among different goals and values, and builds willpower.
• An analysis of several hundred studies found that grades in tenth grade predicted self-esteem in twelfth grade, but self-esteem in tenth grade failed to predict grades in twelfth grade.
• A study found that students who were randomly assigned to receive messages that increased their self-esteem ended up doing worse on the final exam in a class.
• A study of narcissists found that they seemed to be everyone’s favorite person at first, but after a few months they dipped to the bottom of the rankings.
• There’s evidence that the genetic factors associated with ADHD are much rarer in Chinese children than in American children.
• A study of children in Trinidad found that children who had a father in the home were far more willing to delay gratification. Half of the children living with fathers in African homes chose the delayed reward, but none of the children in fatherless homes were willing to wait. Similarly, none of the Indian children living without a father were willing to wait.
• Studies of children who were raised by single parents because the father was absent for reasons other than having abandoned the family (such as being stationed overseas for a long time, or dying at a young age) found that they showed some deficits in self-control, but their problems were not as large as those of the children whose fathers had voluntarily left the home. This suggests that, as usual, children are shaped by a mixture of genetics and the environment.
• Independent research has shown that children who participated in the Tools of the Mind program ended up with significantly better self-control when compared with children who attended more conventional sorts of preschools.
• A study of middle school children found that most children aren’t hurt by playing video games, and that they can derive some of the same benefits from the games as from practicing other activities.
• An analysis of dozens of studies of people with high self-control found that these self-disciplined people did slightly better than average at controlling their weight, but the difference wasn’t as marked as in other areas of their lives.
• A study found that dieters who had suppressed emotions during a sad movie had a much harder time suppressing their appetite.
• A study found that dieters who had sat within arm’s reach of candy gave up sooner on puzzles, demonstrating that their willpower had been depleted by the effort of resisting temptation.
• In lab studies, college students who performed self-control tasks that had nothing to do with food or dieting found themselves having higher desires for sweet foods.
• A study found that people who weighed themselves every day were much mroe successful at keeping their weight from creeping back up.
• A study found that those who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as those who used other techniques.
• Researchers have shown that eating in front of the television increases snacking and that viewers will eat more when their attention is engaged.
• A study found that people who were told to postpone eating candy ended up eating less than people who were told to assume they had decided to eat or who were told to deny themselves the pleasure.
• People who postponed gratification in an experiment reported less desire to eat the candy than either the people who had refused the pleasure outright or those who had eaten their fill.
• A study found that people with good self-control mainly use it not for rescue in emergencies but rather to develop effective habits and routines in school and in work.
• A set of studies found that people with high self-control consistently report less stress in their lives. They use their self-control not to get through crises but to avoid them.
• Studies show that procrastinators are more impulsive than other people. When they are feeling anxious about a difficult job or bored by a mundane chore, they give in to the urge to improve their mood by doing something else.
• Experiments have found that people with stronger willpower are more altruistic. They’re more likely to donate to charity, to do volunteer work, and to offer their own homes as shelter to someone with no place to go.
