How Willpower Works

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this one. Yeah, alright, all that's out of the way, right. Um, So, Chuck, you're doing good, You're feeling well. I'm not feeling great, but you know, yeah, you're ready to be done. No, I'm ready to talk about willpower though, because it is a topic that I struggle with, as do most people. I think, like you struggle with the topic, or you struggle with willpower. I think everybody struggles with willpower. Oh yeah, well, as a matter of fact, um, I think you're absolutely right.

There is a very famous guy named Plato, famous Greek philosopher Plato. Plato, Plato, yes not Plato, right, um, And Plato decided well suggested that the entire human experience, that the sum of human existence could be basically nailed down with just this. You have a higher self and a lower self and your purpose for living is to overcome the usually more powerful urges of the lower self in order to fulfill the goals of the higher self. I

am down without it makes uttering complete sense. I don't know about the reason for living, but the struggle man struggle or at least okay, Yeah, like that's if you're born. You're going to face that, but you're going to face it in varying degrees because, as we found, willpower, which is what you use to get over your lower urges and pursue your higher goals. Um, it comes in differing

amounts for differing people, different people. Yeah, and it. And Robert Lamb wrote the original article from house Stuff Works from Stuff to Blow your Mind, and he points out that we're at odds with our own, uh nature, as we have evolved here on the planet because you know, we craved sugary sweet things because sugar gave us lots of energy back in the day, and back in the day they didn't have little debby cakes within hands reach at all times. So we're sort of at odds with ourselves.

And he points out sexually as well, um, we evolved to spread the seed and procreate as much as possible to ensure the survival of the species. And um, nowadays you can't really do that stuff, or if you do, you're a flander or a jerk or your spreading disease and your public health nuisance. Yeah. So, um, we're at odds with ourselves, with our very existence. Yeah, and not only internally, but you make the point, um as a

side as well. I mean, society and evolution tussle. So you can make the case that society represents our higher self and you know, are what we are, basic instincts that we've evolved to are are lower selves. So that's what's going on. And it's will power, will power that will get us over the bumps that come along in life inevitably. Yeah. And if I think most people relate will power to things like eating or going to the gym, or indulging in uh uh sexual proclivities and things like that,

But I think it's broader than that. In general. I think it's the will to, like Plato said, to strive too, I guess, do the right thing. Yeah, by yourself, by others, by society at large. Right. And I guess also, um, how often you come up against that? How often you have to exercise willpower because you you just hit it on the head. Will Power is the act of making a decision. You're deciding to do something or not to

do something. Um, how often you do that it does depend on how you define the world around you, Like, are these things you know? Are you surrounded by temptations that you have to ward off all the time and you're paying attention to it and they're always closing in? Uh? If you like that, then you're going to exercise your

willpower a lot. If you don't see the world as temptations, you give into them all the time, you're not going to If you look at the world as something that you can handle, you're probably not gonna have to exercise your willpower too much then either. But it's all they're all. Those are three different ways of of living and they all are I guess described by willpower and how you use it. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. Robert h makes a point that has backed up somewhat by science,

actually completely by science. The and he he puts in terms of a video game, which makes sense that if you were a video game and you have a willpower meter, that that willpower meter is replenished and depleted on a daily, probably hourly basis. And the more you uh use your willpower and say, you know what, I'm not going to have that little debby cake, Your little willpower meter goes down and it depletes itself, so you're not going to have as much willpower maybe for the next decision. Right.

It's really interesting. Yeah, that's um pretty new. Our understanding of willpower like that is very new. The first guy to really kind of put it out like that was Freud Um and he basically said, uh, you we have this thing called willpower. We have an ego. Yeah, that's that's what the Freudians associate with willpowers, the ego, and your ego is this finite thing. It has a finite energy reserve. It uses energy, and therefore it can be sapped. And then Freud fell out of fashion, and um, everybody

just kind of stopped looking at willpower that way. And uh it wasn't until in Florida State University psychologist named Roy uh Baumeister the bomb he uh he figured out through this test using chocolate and radishes. I believe that, um, you, if you are staving off temptation using willpower, you actually

do terribly on like another test of willpower. Yeah, they used persistence tests UM basically puzzles that you have to just keep at it and keep at it's not something you could complete immediately, And offered some people chocolate chip cookies and other chocolate treats of their liking and offered other people radishes instead, which is not a fair fight, right, I mean, he really stacked the deck like maybe a radish,

a shaved radish in a salad or something. But if all you're looking at is a plate of radish, then yeah, I would take the cookie. So what he found out though, was the people who ate the radishes had more trouble completing the test. I guess because I guess the ideas they're using up all their willpower to not eat the cookie, so they don't have time for the test the persistence.

And there was also a another kind of follow up study a few years after that by um the the University of Iowa professor with the greatest name of all of the faculty there, Baba shiv Um and uh Dr shiv Um, had a uh basically tested willpower by saying this group is going to remember a two digit number, and this group is gonna remember a seven digit number and then we're gonna test their willpower um by tempting

them with chocolate cake and uh. Dr Shiv found that there was the people who were using their working memory their cognitive capacity to remember the seven digit number had a harder time resisting. So it basically proves that we use our working memory to resist temptation. And I guess it's something like reminding yourself, you know, at the at the forefront of your mind, not to do something, you know,

until the temptation pasts. Who knows, Yeah, maybe I had that cookie yesterday, so man, I can't eat it today. Or we use our working memory to remind ourselves of our long term goals in the face of a short term reward. Well, that's one of the big keys I think. Yeah, and uh, that's something Robert hits on, which is I want that cookie now, and I know bikini seasons coming up, and you've seen me in a bikini. Josh, it's not pretty. I will never get that out of my memory, working

memory or other one that bikini. And but that's sort of what we're at odds with is the short term I think humans as a group tend to enjoy the short short term pleasures and if you truly learn to conquer that in in uh lieu of long term gain, that's when you're like you're winning, is Charlie Sheen would say, right exactly, Although Charlie Sheen is not exactly one who's known to exercise the willpower. No, you know, that was a really ad person to tap for that, But well

I think that's the opposite he was. He thought winning was the short term game. Yeah, I guess yeah, yeah, people like when you guys record this, but it's been I think today might be the very day where you could get away with it. So it was perfect by the way. Um, so from all these tests, like when Baumeister um put his study ego depletion colon is the active self a limited resource, it just basically kicked off the slew of follow up studies from Dr Shiv and others,

and um. One of the things that they found was that you can kind of watch people exercise willpower on the old Wonder machine. Yeah yeah, um. Using m r s they put people in and had them think about, I guess a suite or a health food and decide between them and cal Tech. Yeah, And they found that the venture. Amedial prefrontal cortex lights up when you're making

that decision when you're considering it, which made sense. They I think they kind of expected that, but they were also surprised to find that the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex um, which is located a little further back, Um, that lit up as well. And they think that that has lit up for the people who made the good decision only

thank you. And they think that that's maybe part of your that's part of the working memory where you're like, no, I can't eat that, because that's tapping into that higher self goal pursuit. That's the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex. Right, you did a nice job there, by the way, thanks, uh so. The bomber also went on to say that,

um he could. He compares the willpower, your own willpower to a muscle or something like a muscle, and you can deplete it, Like he said, if you overwork your muscles, you're just gonna deplete your muscles and be worn out at the end of the day. Or you can exercise that muscle in a in a healthy way and make it stronger in the long term. Right, Um, do you do this after reading this, a third realized that I

actually kind of exercised willpower all the time. What you I think you especially do so like, for example, I have a mail key that I used to go get the mail, right and we keep it in our car, and I had to go to the car and get the mail key and then go get the mail. And it was cold out yesterday, and then on the way back I could have just take in the mail key inside with me and taking it back to the car, and the next time I went to the car again

it was very cold. But instead I walked up a flight of stairs, put the mail key into the car, and then went back home. So you're you're you made that decision and you struggled with it, even if in a minor way. Yes, I did it specifically because there was no reason whatsoever for me to do that rationally, and as far as common sense went, there was no there's no purpose to it. But by doing it, I

basically just exercised my willpower. It was something I didn't really want to do, but it wasn't a big deal, but it was I could like doing that accumulates. Yeah, I think I think you and I are really different in that way. I see you as someone who actively works that muscle a lot on a daily basis, and I don't enough and not that I just have no willpower, but I don't give it, give decisions like that enough consideration.

Does that make sense completely? I was like, yeah, I'll just go upstairs and the key on the coffee table, which a sane person she kind of has that that thought. I think that puts you in the same camp. Yeah, but that doesn't ensure that I'm making good decisions for my life, you know. You know, but I mean I don't think you're making bad ones. But it's good to self reflect, you know, Yeah, I do kind of It's

kind of fun. You know, it's like a game. Yeah, I want to you know, It's it's like how Ramrod Street can I stay in? You know? That's what I'm building towards. Uh so um. Another thing Robert points out from the science side of things is as far as giving into the short term in favor of the long term, is glucose plays a big part in that. And I think they found that a quick um shot of sugar, I don't think a whole lot can sometimes stave off

or build up that willpower. Reserve in the term. Yeah, it's like, uh, you you were talking about how we have like a UM willpower bar, and every time we were this temptation is depleted a little more and more. They found that a shot of glucose replenishes the willpower bar. So is that in lieu of like, hey boy, I really want that cupcake, but let me have the juice box instead. That's the irony of it, is giving into that cupcake may help you exercise your willpower with other

stuff later further on. Can't that weird? But yeah, I mean if you had something healthier, that would be the better choice. But the point is is like any kind of shot of glucos has been shown to UM to to re up your your willpower. And this was very much poop pooed at first, this idea, UM, I think Baumeister, This is really great article by John Tierney in New York Times magazine. It's from UM the August before last. It's called do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? Our buddy

Chad loves this proselytized this article. Remember, okay, this is the one, so I strongly recommend everybody to read. It's a good one. But um and and it it talks about Baumeister like thinking that you know, glucose has something to do with this um and it was poop pooed at first, because everybody knows the brain uses the same amount of energy pretty much all day long. So that

didn't make any sense. Like if you're if you're ego depleted and you're you're suffering from some sort of willpower fatigue, but your brain still using the same amount of energy, those two don't jibe. Again with the m r I. What they found was somebody suffering from ego depletion from willpower fatigue who took a shot of glue coast or whatever UM. Their brains lit up in areas that had to do with exercising will power. So while your brain was using the same amount of energy, it was using

them in different places when your willpower was fatigued. And that gluecoast basically was like spinach to popeye for that part of your brain that's charged with exercising willpower. Isn't that Yeah? So what do you carry on a packet

sugar with you at all times? Come on sugar right now? Um? Also, uh, the in that same article they talk about this uh, this kind of landmark study of an Israeli parole board, and um, they found that you if you were a parole e and you came to them after it had been a while since a break or lunch or breakfast, your chances of being paroled dropped by like fifty or sixty oh if the parole board had not had breakfast, yes or no. If they if you came to them

like right after things got started, after breakfast or after lunch, your chances of being paroled were like fifty to fifty six greater than people who came to them for identical crimes like a couple hours later. I'm sure that makes the criminals of the world feel pretty great. Yeah, exactly. So arbitrary. And they what they found is it's not laziness. It's not like physical fatigue where like you can tell

you're tired. What our brains do is they employ the strategy where you you are, you become risk averse, like you don't want to make a decision, so you say, you know what, I'm just gonna put this off. You're gonna go back to jail. I'm not going to grant your parole because that's risky behavior. To let you back out in the world, and I'm just I've made too many decisions today. But you're not thinking this. You just say parole to nine and you have no idea why.

It just makes sense to you at the time. But if you had had some gluecoast that same instance, you may you may be like, well, yeah, I think you're you're ready to come back out in society. That reminds me of the band Rush, Yes, that we talked about before. I remember this from when I was a teenager. You know the lyric um Man, what song is it? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice? Fretty will Oh, yeah, that's from that song, of course.

I think on the original album jacket it says if you choose not to decide, you cannot have made a choice. Is the right? Yeah? My brother and I used to laugh that. I think Neil Perd actually wrote a lot of the lyrics back then that Getty Lee dislike, you know, edged it out with events. But it's the complete opposite meanings. So it's interesting that at some point Rush, I guess that maybe a band argument or something. I'm glad Getty Lee won. Yeah, you you have made a choice. No,

you cannot have made a choice. Just shut up, play drums. Your voice is weird. I remember hearing that the first time. I was like, oh man, oh yeah, blew me away? Yeah yeah, free will. I can't believe I didn't remember the name, Like, I can't think of the name of this song, but it's about free will? Was it red bar Chetta? All right? Oh? I didn't really fully get the the Stanford UH psychologist Walton and Dweck, and that

is Dweck. It sounds like saying direct wrong. Um. I didn't fully get that that They they said that people UH who have will found willpower fatigue tend to slack off when they felt their resolve wavering, but then people who felt their resolve was limitless pressed on. I like that. Just I don't get the point there. It seems like a no brainer. Yeah, I think I think it is.

You may just be looking too deeply. It was like what I was talking about earlier at the beginning, where like depending on how you see the world, like do you see the world is like, like you have willpower, so you can overcome any temptation, You're going to last longer. On tests of will power than somebody who is like, um, I'm feeling kind of weak today, you know, and then you're just gonna give in. Okay, So it is pretty simple. Yeah,

all right, I thought it was a dummy. Not only is it simple, I managed to make it more complex and talk about it at length. Uh. They do know that people, generally there is some genetic component involved, Like if your parents are super self disciplined, then you were more likely to turn out that way, right. I found that to be true from friends of mine whose parents were like super self discipline and their kids kind of

turned out that way too. Yeah, but I wonder, And Robert makes a point in the article like is it genetic or epigenetic? Yeah, I don't know, probably both. Yeah, I would think my guests, we just chose not to decide.

We cannot have made a choice. Uh. And then the old marshmallow experiment this uh stand for not the prison experiment, but the marshmallow experiment from the nineteen sixties, very famous one where they placed these uh tortured these kids basically by placing a marshmallow in front of them and saying, if you hold off on eating that marshmallow in fifteen minutes, you will have to, And of course not many of the kids could hold out, but they found that the

ones who did hold out for the second marshmallow went on in life to greater successes, at least if you count s a T scores as a measure of success, two points higher than the ones who chowed down on the marshmallow, and the ones who ate the marshmallow later on had struggles with relationships and stress and uh attention. Yeah, so I wonder if that has even do with like you know, O c D. I wonder as well, I wonder how much um of our modern problems are really

just crises of willpower? Yeah, I wonder. Um there was a follow up to that sixties experiment. There's been a bunch, but there was one in at the University of Rochester that was carried out last year that um found we are more willing to exercise willpower if we think that what we're holding out for is actually going to happen, you know. Uh, And they did that by this is hilarious. It's funny. He studies with kids are always they're so

cruel and funny. I mean, not the really truly cruel ones that like any psychological study that has the kids almost invariably has some cruel aspect to it, and this one was no, uh, was no exception. Basically, uh, they said, here's the control group, here's here's the experimental group, and the control group, we want to give you some extra art supplies. Let us go get them. And they came back with some extra art supplies. The experimental group. They said, hey,

we're gonna get you some more art supplies. We'll be right back. And they came back. They're like, we don't have any more art supplies. We know you were really excited, but sorry, you're gonna have to make do with that old red pen. And then they tested them with the marshmallow experiment it and found that the ones who had gotten the art supplies, the promise hadn't been broken. Sure, they held out longer than the ones who had been

lied to. Yeah, they're like, screw that, you're not bringing me to marshmallows, this marshmallow right now exactly, I'm gonna kick you in the shin afterwards too. I'll show you. Yeah, that's not cruel on the level. What was that one? The one kid, remember the that we talked about that was tested on like oh, kept in a closet. No, they tested fear conditioning and extension and the kid it was little Albert where they like they would put a bunny in his lap and then bang of metal with

a hammer and scare the Jesus out of him. Right, And then they came to like fear rabbits, like there was a search for him, right, and they eventually found him, they thought, I think, so, I don't remember I wrote a blog post that I'll have to republish or whatever because it's been a while, I don't remember. But yeah, they figured out who it was pretty much. So this isn't on that level. No, no, no, this is just

Marshmallows yesterday. Um. So, oh, there's one other point I wanted to bring up that I thought was pretty interesting and horrible from that John Tierney article. Um, where with with decision fatigue, with exercising willpower disproportionately affects the poor and they think that possibly now, uh, that poverty exists in a cycle because if you're a poor person, you have to exercise willpower, you have to make more decisions than somebody who has more resources, more money, like say

you're walking through the grocery store. Um, you know, I want the soap and this food. If you're poor, you might have to say I want both, but I have to just buy one. I don't have enough for both,

So how much is it going to be? And their willpower there there there, their resources of of willpower of decision making become fatigued a lot faster because they have to exercise it a lot more and they don't have the uh, the resources to get themselves out of poverty, to indulge or to like study or do you know, do more that they already have the deck stacked against them resource wise. But then you throw in this, this idea of willpower. Possibly that's that makes it even more difficulty. Boy,

I never really thought about that. It's pretty interesting stuff. It makes you, It makes me, you know, you feel for him even more. Yeah, and it makes me feel bad when say, do I want the peanut butter ganash cupcake or the chocolate? You know what, Just go ahead and give me both, right exactly, Well, you can buy both and then just take one to somebody who's struggling in the grocery store trying to figure out they're gonna buy soap for food. It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah,

uh you got anything else? Man? No, this is this is a good one. Yeah. I like willpower. It's fun. Go out and exercise it in little ways. It's fun. Or don't either that or um strap of car battery to your inner thighs. It's just for fun. Uh okay. Well, if you want to learn more about willpower and read this good article by Robert Lamb, you can type in willpower in the search bar at how stuff works dot com and it will bring it up. And I said

search bar. So it's time for a listener mail, Yeah, Josh. Quickly, before we do that, we need to say a special thank you to a fan of ours who helped us out with our Wikipedia page. Oh nice, thank you. And he was very cool and and his name and he's been mentioned on tech stuff evidently too. Oh well, this guy's a star and we're not gonna help that against him. And this is how he His name is felled A N t r I K s h yadav y A d A D And he says, you pronounce it won tricks.

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