As several others have pointed out, the study in this article, as described, is methodologically flawed. Regardless, what they were attempting to show has been established extensively by R. F. Baumeister of Florida State. A good review of the literature is available from Gailliot and Baumeister (2007): <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=12030759983056354922&hl=en&as_sdt=20000000000&as_vis=1" rel="nofollow">http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=120307599830563549...</a><p>The abstract:<p>"Past research indicates that self-control relies on some sort of limited energy source. This review suggests that blood glucose is one important part of the energy source of self-control. Acts of self-control deplete relatively large amounts of glucose. Self-control failures are more likely when glucose is low or cannot be mobilized effectively to the brain (i.e., when insulin is low or insensitive). Restoring glucose to a sufficient level typically improves self-control. Numerous self-control behaviors fit this pattern, including controlling attention, regulating emotions, quitting smoking, coping with stress, resisting impulsivity, and refraining from criminal and aggressive behavior. Alcohol reduces glucose throughout the brain and body and likewise impairs many forms of self-control. Furthermore, self-control failure is most likely during times of the day when glucose is used least effectively. Self-control thus appears highly susceptible to glucose. Self-control benefits numerous social and interpersonal processes. Glucose might therefore be related to a broad range of social behavior."
Interesting, but the experiment there seems to be flawed. Cookies have a lot more sugar/glucose than radishes and it changes your blood sugar levels a lot more, so you'd expect right after eating the people that ate cookies will have more energy to persist on the task.<p>It doesn't quite prove what they are trying to prove (that self control and change are exhausting). They should have tried it with something else that was tempting and that was not food.
I like to think of my self-control as a muscle. Yes, it gets worn out and needs a lazy Sunday every once in a while as the study shows, but at the same time the more I exercise it, the stronger it gets.
QQ: Given this, how _is_ it possible to change as a person? For example, you read these rare stories of overweight guys really turning their lives around and becoming all out studs. How do they do something like that?
Irrespective of the legitimacy of this study, it does make a lot of sense. You see a lot of people trying to turn their life around, especially around the new year. Eating healthier foods, doing more exercise, cutting back on alcohol or smoking. You see them a couple of weeks later and the stress levels caused by this amount of change is causing more damage than the unhealthy habits they are trying to break. You see them a month later and they are back to their old habits, and sometimes with a vengeance.<p>I've always advocated slow change. Choose one thing, and just make sure you are mindful of that. Practice this day to day. Don't say "I'll stick it out for three months and see how I go", just take it day to day. Then, a month down the track, see how that person who hasn't eaten fast food for the last thirty days feels about going to Macca's. Maybe, that person would rather have a home made sandwich, or maybe not, but just wait and see and stop telling yourself stories.
I've heard this from other studies, but this one seems less convincing. Couldn't just be "damn those scientists, they won't even give me cookies. My motivation for trying their task just dropped off a cliff"? At the very least, they could have checked by giving other participants money or no money for doing the task?
Are peoples' levels of gullibility also exhaustible, or do we have to define a whole swathe of human characteristics based on some students, radishes, and cookies?
All of these snippets are fascinating.<p>I can believe that this is a real phenomena.<p>But every discussion I've read so far seems like a snippet, a <i>gloss</i>, just a bit of information to get me to believe this but not enough for me to feel I understand what's happening.<p>What really qualifies as self control here? Refusing temptation? Concentrating on something? Not following habit? Suppose what I'm <i>used-to</i> is eating radishes but I how good cookies are good?<p>Does anyone have a reference for an article or book that really <i>digs</i> into this subject, give more than or two experiments, gives some quantification or theory or some kind of deeper understanding of this. I'm curious now but frustrated.
This is so <i>true</i>, I know from personal experience. So, since we all start with a fixed amount of self control, better save it for things that make more impact, which is a dynamically changing list from day to day. Example: If you'll be doing tons of boring development today, splurge on the lunch.