
Need a study break to refresh? Maybe not, say Stanford researchers - Brashman
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/willpower-resource-study-101410.html
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GHFigs
The article sort of pits this study and theory of ego depletion as mutually
incompatible, but I think that's probably an exaggeration, either by the
author of the article or the authors of the paper. That beliefs can influence
ego depletion is not a new finding, nor is it inconsistent with there being a
physiological basis.

It doesn't even really sound like they are addressing the theory itself but
some particular implication. For instance, the belief that you need to take
frequent breaks while studying does not follow directly from the belief that
self-regulation is a limited resource.

Personally, as a "believer" of the latter I find the former contradictory: it
is exactly what I would _not_ do. In my view, since self-regulation is
limited, taking frequent breaks is foolish because means more occasions at
which you're forced to self-regulate.

I don't think I'm alone in finding that it requires significantly less
willpower to continue a task already in progress than it does to re-initiate
an interrupted task. Starting (and re-starting) is always the hard part. I
only break when it is patently obvious that the task has already been
interrupted. Purposefully taking additional breaks seems like an absurdly
premature optimization extremely likely to backfire. And yet, from the sound
of it, that's what they advised one group to do. Does this mean I secretly
believe in unlimited willpower?

~~~
webwright
"It doesn't even really sound like they are addressing the theory itself but
some particular implication."

Agreed. This is just another priming study-- NOT a willpower study. Here's
another:

"But the priming effect does not just affect our behavior. It can also,
incredibly, have significant effects on our actual performance. In another
study cited by Gladwell, two groups of students were asked to answer forty-two
questions from the game Trivial Pursuit. But first, one group was first asked
to sit and think about professors, the other to think about soccer hooligans.
And the difference was dramatic: an average of 55.6% of the questions were
answered correctly by the first group, while only 42.6% were answered
correctly by the second. How can these results be explained? Can priming
somehow temporarily infuse the brain with an expanded store of facts?
Obviously not. Instead, what seems to be happening is that encouraging people
to "think smart" briefly increases mental qualities like their ability to
focus, their sense of recall, and their ability to quickly and correctly
integrate diverse pieces of information. In other words, priming does not make
us more intelligent, but it does briefly make us better at using the
intelligence we already have." [1]

The scarier one is about race:

"The psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson created an even more
extreme version of this test, using black college students and twenty
questions taken from the Graduate Record Examination, the standardized test
used for entry into graduate school. When the students were asked to identify
their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime
them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and
academic achievement - and the number of items they got right was cut in
half..."

1: grabbed from <http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/01/priming-the-mind.html>

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gjm11
It looks to me as if what the study shows is not _that willpower is not, after
all, a limited resource_ but _thinking of your willpower as a limited resource
makes you have less of it_. That's quite interesting (though not, I'd have
thought, a big surprise) but not nearly as interesting as it would be if
they'd actually shown that it's _only_ thinking of willpower as limited that
limits it.

~~~
noglorp
Practice makes perfect.

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dools
Funnily enough, I actually take a nap sometimes when I can't figure out the
solution to a problem or I'm going around in circles.

Perhaps it's not realy sleep, but more often than not I wake up with the
solution, or at least more ready to tackle the solution.

I've also found almost ubiquitously that whatever had me completely confounded
the night before is a hell of a lot easier to work out in the morning.

Perhaps it's just me but I find that sleep for me is a natural reaction to
mental stress, and I always feel better afterwards.

~~~
mironathetin
It think these are two different things.

Our brains can go on working on the problem even if we take a rest. If we rest
with a the problem in our head, we are actually still focused. Probably,
relaxing and letting the brain do its job without forcing it into one
direction, often results in a good solution. Same with me, btw.

The study, as I have understood it, is more about giving up with a problem.
You give up faster, if you think your resources are limited. It is more the
contrast between either you relax in order to solve a problem, or have some
beers with your friends talking about soccer and thus escape.

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metamemetics
> _"But if you think of willpower as something that is not easily depleted,
> you can go on and on."_

That's the problem. Going on and on and on. Usually when it comes to any
complex task, going on and on and on is a BAD thing. Forcing yourself to take
breaks at a set interval makes you realize and optimize what it is you have
actually been spending time on. And assess the next direction to take.

Working without taking breaks is like jamming down the accelerator without
steering! You need to do _both_ if you hope to do anything more complex than
travelling in a straight line.

"Willpower" is a bit fuzzy and may not be a limited resource, but attentional
capacity and working memory most certainly are.

~~~
Lewisham
Yeah, the article has nothing to say about the effectiveness of the work being
done, just that you are "working". I can bang my head against a problem all
day long, but I'll find the answer in the shower.

Work smarter, not harder, right?

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Nemisis7654
So, if I just BELIEVED that I could keep studying last night for my algorithms
exam today, I could have stayed up all night and had a good study session? I
wish I had believed that...

~~~
nooneelse
Not sleeping is counter productive to the goal of learning and retaining
information.

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stcredzero
Study breaks are not about replenishing willpower. They are about giving the
brain some quiet time to organize the newly acquired information. Apparently,
mental activity interferes with this organization process. I remember covering
this 20 years ago in my psych classes. Researchers actually had one
experimental group that reviewed an outline during their "break," another that
took a nap, and another that was sedated. The sedated group actually retained
the most information!

Now this is such common knowledge, it's hard to find the original research
with a Google search. This makes me suspicious. Anyone have a reference?

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sliverstorm
What can I say, sometimes by 6AM my edge is considerably dulled, and a bit of
a break can help fight off total exhaustion.

There's also writer's block-ish occasions where you keep staring at one
problem and it's like beating your head on a brick wall, but if you step away
and have a cup of tea and come back, that tough problem unravels itself in
front of you.

I've also used the "I need a break" when I know that I'm simply out of juice
for the day, and not going to make any more progress (particularly when I have
something else heavy on my mind). It's not a break, I don't come back to it
for at least a day, but it lets me walk away without feeling like a failure.

~~~
akjetma
I've spent hours looking at simple statics problems that I know I should be
able to solve in fifteen minutes, but just can't for whatever reason. It's
like I've gotten on the wrong mental track early on and can only move further
along that track or backwards. I'll give up for the moment to go eat or see
some friends or just make contact with the outside world for an hour or so and
during that time, the answer presents itself without much effort. I can then
come back and redo the problem within 20 minutes.

I wonder, though, if these epiphanies could have happened without the hour
long struggle preceding it. Leaving a problem, it feels as if my mind is
untangling itself and organizing this mess of thoughts.

What I would really like to see some research on is the mental barrier between
myself and starting the work in the first place. I'm looking at it right
now... :|

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norswap
<<"If you think of willpower as something that's biologically limited, you're
more likely to be tired when you perform a difficult task," said Veronika Job,
the paper's lead author. "But if you think of willpower as something that is
not easily depleted, you can go on and on.">>

This really bothered me. Maybe if you think that willpower is not easy
depleted, it is because you have more of it than the people who think it is.

This being said, I personnaly believe that if willpower is limited, it can at
least be trained to seem like it isn't.

~~~
jessriedel
They covered that objection in the paper, which is available free on the
website of one of the authors:
[http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job...](http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job,%20Dweck,%20%26%20Walton,%202010.pdf)

In study #2, they manipulated people's beliefs about willpower by
administering a "push poll", and then tested willpower depletion.

~~~
kd0amg
_In study #2, they manipulated people's beliefs about willpower by
administering a "push poll", and then tested willpower depletion._

How did they determine how well the push poll influenced that belief? How did
they ensure it didn't work better on those who already had less willpower?

~~~
jessriedel
Did you not want to read the paper? It's really short and clearly written.

They just randomly assign people to group A or B. Group A is told about the
actual theory that willpower is a finite resource (“Working on a strenuous
mental task can make you feel tired such that you need a break before
accomplishing a new task”). Group B is told a competing theory that willpower
_compounds_ (“Sometimes, working on a strenuous mental task can make you feel
energized for further challenging activities”). They administered surveys to
confirm that they had successfully influence each groups opinions.

Then, the experimenters tested the degree to which using willpower became
harder or easier throughout a task. On average, group A exhibited willpower
fatigue but group B did not.

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Jach
I'd like to see more research into this, but perhaps they can try it out on
young children who haven't yet formed solid beliefs about the nature of
willpower (or even contemplated it for that matter). You can even teach groups
of them one theory or another as separate variables to agnosticism. I still
believe willpower is a limited resource but I'd bet people's beliefs about it
can lead to underestimating the limit. (Self-fulfilling prophecies play in
too.)

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fylox
I still think that frequent breaks are important as they help change thinking
patterns.

~~~
Hates_
Is that a good example of what the article states though? _"The belief in it
is what influences your behavior."_

~~~
fylox
No, I don't think so. I was referring to emptying your short term memory so
that unwanted thoughts don't disturb your thinking.

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utoku
Sometimes willpower is the only thing you have when others say you don't.

