The community doesn’t seem to be resolved. Should I model willpower as a muscle or as a battery? Or should I abandon both and model myself in terms of incentives/signaling?
If you fall into either camp, why do you believe what you believe? Links to studies where scientists used a particular framework obviously doesn’t count. Is there any evidence constantly challenging your willpower makes it stronger in the long run?
Links to studies where scientists used a particular framework obviously doesn’t count. Is there any evidence constantly challenging your willpower makes it stronger in the long run?
Should I model willpower as a muscle or as a battery?
I’m firmly in the “muscle” camp. Here’s why:
When you use a muscle a lot, it tires, and you need to rest for a while before exercising it again. This is the part that resembles a battery, giving rise to that model. The difference is that, after going through this process several times, the muscle’s capacity for use is greater, whereas the battery’s would be smaller. In my experience, exercising willpower carefully makes it easier to use it in the future. As a fellow once said, getting better at skills is a skill, which you can get better at.
So, by that model, the problem with this oft-referenced comic is obvious. The author is doing the equivalent of going to the gym and lifting the heaviest weights she can for as long as she can stand, then going back the next day and trying to do the same thing. Of course she crashes. The way to get stronger is to push at the edge of your comfort zone only a little bit, keep doing it until it becomes comfortable, and then push a little more next time. Ask anyone who plays an instrument. You don’t rush through the tricky section over and over and expect to learn it; you slow it down, break it up until it’s only a little harder than what you’ve been doing, and then work up to play speed again. And what do they call the thing you build up that way? Muscle memory.
The community doesn’t seem to be resolved. Should I model willpower as a muscle or as a battery? Or should I abandon both and model myself in terms of incentives/signaling?
If you fall into either camp, why do you believe what you believe? Links to studies where scientists used a particular framework obviously doesn’t count. Is there any evidence constantly challenging your willpower makes it stronger in the long run?
Well. Now I don’t know what to say.
I’m firmly in the “muscle” camp. Here’s why:
When you use a muscle a lot, it tires, and you need to rest for a while before exercising it again. This is the part that resembles a battery, giving rise to that model. The difference is that, after going through this process several times, the muscle’s capacity for use is greater, whereas the battery’s would be smaller. In my experience, exercising willpower carefully makes it easier to use it in the future. As a fellow once said, getting better at skills is a skill, which you can get better at.
So, by that model, the problem with this oft-referenced comic is obvious. The author is doing the equivalent of going to the gym and lifting the heaviest weights she can for as long as she can stand, then going back the next day and trying to do the same thing. Of course she crashes. The way to get stronger is to push at the edge of your comfort zone only a little bit, keep doing it until it becomes comfortable, and then push a little more next time. Ask anyone who plays an instrument. You don’t rush through the tricky section over and over and expect to learn it; you slow it down, break it up until it’s only a little harder than what you’ve been doing, and then work up to play speed again. And what do they call the thing you build up that way? Muscle memory.
I lean toward battery. I’m unaware of any ‘willpower muscle’ evidence.