Good article, I’ll have to see if reminding myself of this helps at work tomorrow.
Success and happiness cause you to regain willpower;
This is dangerously incorrect—studies show willpower is only an expendable resource for people who believe it to be. People who don’t think willpower is expendable have longer lasting willpower.
I think you might be assuming causation from correlation. It seems like one could argue just as well that people who inherently have longer lasting willpower are less likely to view it as an expendable resource.
It seems like one could argue just as well that people who inherently have longer lasting willpower are less likely to view it as an expendable resource.
Fortunately, they controlled for that in the studies by doing one where they primed people with the relevant beliefs, as well as one where they just used people’s existing beliefs. ;-)
I’m not going to believe an experiment, especially an experiment whose conclusion goes against scientific consensus. However, I’d believe a review article that tells me how psychologists interpreted the experiment and the investigations that followed it. There’s much more weight of evidence in a review article—many experiments rather than one, and an expert’s conclusions based upon them.
I hope, though, that my belief changes somehow after seeing the experiment—enough to think it worth my time to look up a review, perhaps.
Good article, I’ll have to see if reminding myself of this helps at work tomorrow.
This is dangerously incorrect—studies show willpower is only an expendable resource for people who believe it to be. People who don’t think willpower is expendable have longer lasting willpower.
I think you might be assuming causation from correlation. It seems like one could argue just as well that people who inherently have longer lasting willpower are less likely to view it as an expendable resource.
Fortunately, they controlled for that in the studies by doing one where they primed people with the relevant beliefs, as well as one where they just used people’s existing beliefs. ;-)
Indeed willpower is not a expendable resource. Neither success and hapiness nor resting will regain willpower (unless you believe it to be so). Need a study break to refresh? Maybe not, say Stanford researchers
The link to the paper is in the article
I’m not going to believe an experiment, especially an experiment whose conclusion goes against scientific consensus. However, I’d believe a review article that tells me how psychologists interpreted the experiment and the investigations that followed it. There’s much more weight of evidence in a review article—many experiments rather than one, and an expert’s conclusions based upon them.
I hope, though, that my belief changes somehow after seeing the experiment—enough to think it worth my time to look up a review, perhaps.