So I found this research a while ago saying, essentially, that willpower is only limited if you believe it is—subjects who believed their willpower was abundant were able to power through tasks without an extra glucose boost.
I was excited because this seemed different from the views I saw on LessWrong, and I thought based on what I’d seen people posting and commenting that this might warrant a big update for some people here. Without searching the site, I posted about it, and then was embarrassed to find out that it had been posted here before a couple of years before...
What puzzles me, though, is that people here still seem to talk about ego depletion as if it’s the only model of “willpower” there is. Is it that not everyone has seen that study, or is it that people don’t take it seriously compared to the other research? I’m curious.
There’s been a replication of that (I’m assuming you’re talking about the 2010 paper by Job, Dweck and Walton). I haven’t looked at it in detail. The abstract says that the original result was replicated but you can still observe ego-depletion in people who believe in unlimited willpower, you just have to give them a more exhausting task.
“X is true” means “X is a map, and X corresponds to some territory Y”. “X is real” means “X is territory.”
The relevant contrast, though, is between ‘affects’ and ‘makes itself’. We could rephrase Ritalin: ‘The inaccurate map changes the territory (in a way that results in its improved accuracy), but not enough to make itself (fully) accurate.’
Thanks! That explains it. And from looking through it, it looks like the ego depletion after you give them enough work is the same regardless of their beliefs, as per gwern’s comment.
Pretty sure the causation goes in the opposite direction; It’s trivial to notice how it works for yourself, very hard to check how it works for others, and then the typical mind fallacy happens.
So I found this research a while ago saying, essentially, that willpower is only limited if you believe it is—subjects who believed their willpower was abundant were able to power through tasks without an extra glucose boost.
I was excited because this seemed different from the views I saw on LessWrong, and I thought based on what I’d seen people posting and commenting that this might warrant a big update for some people here. Without searching the site, I posted about it, and then was embarrassed to find out that it had been posted here before a couple of years before...
What puzzles me, though, is that people here still seem to talk about ego depletion as if it’s the only model of “willpower” there is. Is it that not everyone has seen that study, or is it that people don’t take it seriously compared to the other research? I’m curious.
There’s been a replication of that (I’m assuming you’re talking about the 2010 paper by Job, Dweck and Walton). I haven’t looked at it in detail. The abstract says that the original result was replicated but you can still observe ego-depletion in people who believe in unlimited willpower, you just have to give them a more exhausting task.
Now I ache to know how people who believe the result of that experiment perform.
So the false belief somehow affects reality, but not enough to make itself actually true?
What’s the difference between “reality” and “actually true”?
In this case, you might phrase it more as ‘the asymptotics are the same, but believing in infinite willpower has a better constant factor’.
Now we need to test the people who know this fact and see when they falter.
Also, I want to see a shounen manga that applies this knowledge.
“X is true” means “X is a map, and X corresponds to some territory Y”. “X is real” means “X is territory.”
The relevant contrast, though, is between ‘affects’ and ‘makes itself’. We could rephrase Ritalin: ‘The inaccurate map changes the territory (in a way that results in its improved accuracy), but not enough to make itself (fully) accurate.’
Thanks! That explains it. And from looking through it, it looks like the ego depletion after you give them enough work is the same regardless of their beliefs, as per gwern’s comment.
Pretty sure the causation goes in the opposite direction; It’s trivial to notice how it works for yourself, very hard to check how it works for others, and then the typical mind fallacy happens.