Willpower is like a mental muscle. It needs regular stretching and exercise. Do some of us have more willpower than others?
More than 40 years ago, Walter Mischel, PhD, a psychologist now at Columbia University, explored self-control through his famous “marshmallow test”. He gave the preschoolers two choices either have one marshmallow now, or wait until the researcher returned back into the room and the child would receive two marshmallows later. Preschoolers with good self-control would sacrifice the immediate pleasure of a chewy marshmallow in order to indulge in two marshmallows at some later point. Quite simply, willpower can be taught and learned at its very basic level by reinforcing the ability to delay gratification.
Now extend this to ex-smokers who stop surrounding themselves around others who smoke at lunchtime. Or shoppers that resist splurging at a new sale, to alcoholics that resist even the first sip that chemically creates indulgence. In every aspect, the notion of delayed gratification explains why willpower succeeds or fails.
Psychologists often refer to this like a “hot/cold” button. The cool button is cognitive in nature. It’s essentially a thinking system, incorporating knowledge about sensations, feelings, actions and goals — reminding yourself, for instance, why you shouldn’t eat the marshmallow. While the cool button is reflective, the hot button is impulsive and emotional. The hot button is responsible for quick, reflexive responses to certain triggers — such as popping the marshmallow into your mouth without thinking of the long-term implications. When willpower fails, exposure to a “hot” trigger essentially overrides the cool leading to impulsive actions. Some of us may be more or less susceptible to hot triggers.
The marshmallow study didn’t end there. B.J. Casey, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, along with Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, PhD, of the University of Washington, managed to contact 59 participants from that study (now in their mid-40’s). They were retested on their willpower strength through a series of tasks. Incredibly, the participants’ willpower had largely held up over four decades. Those children who were less successful at resisting the marshmallow all those years ago did more poorly on the self-control task as adults.
Whatever your goal. Make it specific, realistic, and measurable. Little by little you can tackle it because it goes to show how willpower (with practice) may persist throughout a lifetime.
Sources:
- Casey, B. J., et al. (2011). Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 1498-5003.
- Metcalfe J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower.Psychological Review, 106, 3-19.
- Mischel, M. et al. (1989). Delay of gratification in children.Science, 244, 933-938.
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