

Most of us have a finite supply of willpower - cwan
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006569.html

======
codexon
Link to the full article bypassing blog spam.

[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/mu-
rda092409....](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/mu-
rda092409.php)

The blog leaves out the bottom part where it mentions:

"Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself," she
says.

------
Perceval
Studies have shown that willpower is linked to blood glucose levels, i.e. that
sugar is the fuel for willpower:

<http://psr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/11/4/303>

[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/how-to-boost-
your-w...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/how-to-boost-your-
willpower/)

~~~
anamax
"Study subjects who drank sugar-sweetened lemonade, which raises glucose
levels quickly, performed better on self-control tests"

Great. The diet for willpower (grazing) makes me fat.

~~~
mcxx
Not really. Eat honey.

------
hegemonicon
The study escapes me at the moment (it might be from a Dan Gilbert TED talk),
but people who've just spent time on a difficult puzzle/task are also shown to
have less willpower. It's not so much that we have a finite amount of
willpower that we have a finite amount of cognitive resources that we can
devote to various tasks, willpower being one of them.

------
req2
Roy Baumeister has done a lot of the early work on ego depletion. Wikipedia
has a good background of reading material:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion>

------
charlesju
I also believe in an amendment to this hypothesis. Some actions that require
will-power unlocks more will-power so you might gain will-power after the
action.

For instance, going for a run boosts energy and will-power that allows you to
work harder in the office.

~~~
cwan
As a sometimes follower of GTD, I also find dumping my to do's from my mind
onto paper is remarkably energizing/motivating.

------
keeptrying
If you've really been working on a startup in your free time from your regular
job then you'll be painfully aware that this is true.

Every friday, I try to plan a well balanced weekend so that my willpower to
work on my startup is kept topped up after my regular job workweek. I do this
by:

1\. Planning for one activity during the weekend which I absolutely love to
do: kiteboarding or watching football. Its usually good to have this on sunday
so that you look forward to it during friday night and saturday. (Yes I've
stopped going out on friday night.)

2\. Recapping who my most likely paying customers are going to be. And writing
out a list of bugs and features that I will work on to be able to acoomodate
those users.

3\. A list of UI (simple) and fun features which I can do when I start to get
tired working.

The system seems to work but is not procrastination-proof. I think I still
need to add:

1\. A well stocked fridge.

2\. A little more face time with my friends. (This is a great willpower
rejuvenator.)

3\. More time in the gym. Right now this is at 0.

------
chasingsparks
I often think of my willpower like mana/eve/whatever in a video game. It's
dreadful to watch it deplete so quickly at the 9-5.

~~~
actionjackson
Use your gold to buy some potion then.

------
Estragon
The will to complete a task is a state of mind. Talking about a "finite supply
of willpower" implicitly treats willpower as a substance, rather than a
computational state. It's like claiming that a computer has a "finite capacity
to run emacs," and you're using this precious capacity up by playing video
games.

~~~
akeefer
See Perceval's comment above that links to studies showing that glucose levels
influence willpower. In other words, it _is_ basically a physical substance on
some level.

------
billswift
I wrote a blog post [http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/08/akrasia-as-
reveale...](http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/08/akrasia-as-revealed-
preference.html) , partially in response to a Less Wrong thread, where I wrote
"Complaining about akrasia, the lack of will-power, to get done what you want
to do, may show that your real preferences are not those you are claiming." So
maybe what the research shows is that the participants have a limited amount
of BS they are willing to put up with; they just want it to get over with
rather than focusing on the rest of the study.

------
edw519
_After we used this cognitive task to deplete participants' self-regulatory
capacity, they didn't exercise as hard as participants who had not performed
the task._

This is science?

They used a subjective test of questionable applicability as a measure of a
subjective metric of questionable importance to determine that a test group
didn't perform as well (whatever that means) as a control group.

The only willpower needed here was to make it to the end of this pseudo-
scientific article. Now that I have, I probably won't be able to complete any
work for the rest of the day :-)

~~~
req2
The Stroop test is a fairly standard and well-respected test. To claim
otherwise takes a post with a lot more substance than the one you have
offered.

Care to explain why the test or metric is subjective or questionable, or why
you are qualified to declare such?

Until then, refrain with your indignant declamations.

~~~
edw519
_Care to explain why the test or metric is subjective or questionable_

OK, let's start with the fact that OP never defines "willpower", whatever that
is and for which each of us probably has a different definition. This alone
places all further study on a solid foundation of quicksand. Then, OP never
explains the applicability or purpose or reciting color words in different
colors.

 _why you are qualified_

You mean any more than an "associate professor of kinesiology". I hold my
years of experience completing projects in the trenches against her psych lab
any day.

 _refrain with your indignant declamations_

Not "indignant declamations" (whatever that means), just my opinion. Are you
suggesting that people with opinions should refrain from expressing them in a
discussion forum?

Honestly, if this was a wiki, this study would fail horribly in the "citing
needed" test. And if it was in physics, biology, or any hard science, it would
be laughed off the board. Are you suggesting that since it's psychology
related, it deserves a free pass?

It took a lot of willpower to refrain from responding to your reply, but I had
none left. Oooh, maybe OP is onto something after all.

~~~
req2
"Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks such as regulating your emotions,
can deplete your _self-regulatory capacity_ to exercise,"

A distinction made more clear by the non-blogspam linked in the comments here,
but perfectly evident in the words of the lead author.

 _I hold my years of experience completing projects in the trenches against
her psych lab any day._

"This is science?"

 _just my opinion_

If your opinion is that science isn't science until it satisfies your
intuition, it's not wanted.

It's obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the blogspam
of a press release isn't going to have the citations of a study. I don't
suggest psychology gets away without citations, but a cursory knowledge of the
field would let you know the Stroop test _is_ science, and that an examination
of the actual study, should you care to put any effort into something other
than your denigrations, would inform you that your flippancy is unfounded.

------
joe_the_user
The thing about these studies is that while you can discover that one thing
that is commonly thought-of as requiring willpower might indeed interfere with
another such thing, the question of what that whole class of activities is has
not been answered and indeed varies from person to person.

For one man, for example, approaching an attractive woman might require
willpower while for another, it might just be a habitual response.

On the other hand, it's likely solving a difficult puzzle would requires
resources on anyone's part.

This is a crucial concept and I hope that question of definition is worked
on...

~~~
joe_the_user
And so why does this deserve a downmod?

------
jack7890
Don't ALL of us have a finite supply?

