Regarding self-control, there’s a slight issue with using time spent rather then task accomplished. When the task involves an ugh field, I’ve become quite good at spending time “working” without accomplishing anything.
I suggested subjecting oneself to a superstimulus without reacting to it for a certain period of time/certain number of exposures—leaving a bag of candy on one’s kitchen counter for a week without eating any, for example.
The problem with this kind of test is that the subject’s awareness that a test is occurring skews the result. If you leave a piece of delicious-looking cake on my counter for a week, there is a high probability (>0.95) that I will eat it within a week. If you leave the exact same cake on my counter and say to me, “I want to see if you have the willpower to refrain from eating this cake,” I would say the probability of my eating the cake within a week drops to 0.01 or less.
Regarding self-control, there’s a slight issue with using time spent rather then task accomplished. When the task involves an ugh field, I’ve become quite good at spending time “working” without accomplishing anything.
Very good point and I didn’t think about that. Can you think of a self-control requirement that uses “task accomplished”?
I suggested subjecting oneself to a superstimulus without reacting to it for a certain period of time/certain number of exposures—leaving a bag of candy on one’s kitchen counter for a week without eating any, for example.
The problem with this kind of test is that the subject’s awareness that a test is occurring skews the result. If you leave a piece of delicious-looking cake on my counter for a week, there is a high probability (>0.95) that I will eat it within a week. If you leave the exact same cake on my counter and say to me, “I want to see if you have the willpower to refrain from eating this cake,” I would say the probability of my eating the cake within a week drops to 0.01 or less.
Actually, I took that into account in considering this a level 1 benchmark. It’s not supposed to be very hard.