Field and Online Experiments on Procrastination and Willpower

Self-control problems have recently received considerable attention from economic theorists. We conducted two studies to test the benefits of externally imposed deadlines and how willpower depletion affects behavior, providing some of the first data in these areas. Each study involved a behavioral intervention designed to affect performance. We find that for a lengthy task, regular deadlines neither reduce procrastination nor increase completion rates. Second, a willpower-depleting task reduces initial effort but increases overall task-completion rates. Our results help to inform ongoing efforts to understand and model procrastination, willpower and commitment mechanisms.Experiment, Behavioral Interventions, Procrastination, Willpower

Temptation at work

To encourage worker productivity offices prohibit Internet use. Consequently, many employees delay Internet activity to the end of the workday. Recent work in social psychology, however, suggests that using willpower to delay gratification can negatively impact performance. We report data from an experiment where subjects in a Willpower Treatment are asked to resist the temptation to join others in watching a humorous video for 10 minutes. In relation to a baseline treatment that does not require willpower, we show that resisting this temptation detrimentally impacts economic productivity on a subsequent task.temptation, willpower, lab experiment.

Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges

Common intuition and experimental psychology suggest that the ability to self-regulate ("willpower") is a depletable resource. We investigate the behavior of an agent with limited willpower who optimally consumes over time an endowment of a tempting and storable consumption good or "cake". We assume that restraining consumption below the most tempting feasible rate requires willpower. Any willpower not used to regulate consumption may be valuable in controlling other urges. Willpower thus links otherwise unrelated behaviors requiring self-control. An agent with limited willpower will display apparent domain-specific time preference. Such an agent will almost never perfectly smooth his consumption, even when it is feasible to do so. Whether the agent relaxes control of his consumption over time (as experimental psychologists predict) or tightens it (as most behavioral theories predict) depends in our model on the net effect of two analytically distinct and opposing forces.willpower, self-control, hotelling

Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges

Common intuition and experimental psychology suggest that the ability to self-regulate, willpower, is a depletable resource. We investigate the behavior of an agent who optimally consumes a cake (or paycheck or workload) over time and who recognizes that restraining his consumption too much would exhaust his willpower and leave him unable to manage his consumption. Unlike prior models of self-control, a model with willpower depletion can explain the increasing consumption sequences observable in high frequency data (and corresponding laboratory findings), the apparent links between unrelated self-control behaviors, and the altered economic behavior following imposition of cognitive loads. At the same time, willpower depletion provides an alternative explanation for a taste for commitment, intertemporal preference reversals, and procrastination. Accounting for willpower depletion thus provides a more unified theory of time preference. It also provides an explanation for anomalous intratemporal behaviors such as low correlations between health-related activities.

Promoting Public Health In The Context Of The “Obesity Epidemic”: False Starts And Promising New Directions

In the battle to combat obesity rates in the United States, several misconceptions have dominated policy initiatives. We address those misconceptions, including the notion that restrictive diets lead to long-term weight loss, that stigmatizing obesity is an effective strategy for promoting weight reduction, and that weight and physical health should be considered synonymous with one another. In offering correctives to each of these points, we draw on psychological science to suggest new policies that could be enacted at both the local and national levels. Instead of policies that rely solely on individual willpower, which is susceptible to failure, we recommend those that make use of environmental changes to reduce the amount of willpower necessary to achieve healthy behavior. Ultimately, the most effective policies will promote health rather than any arbitrary level of weight

Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges

Common intuition and experimental psychology suggest that the ability to self-regulate, willpower, is a depletable resource. We investigate the behavior of an agent who optimally consumes a cake (or paycheck or workload) over time and who recognizes that restraining his consumption too much would exhaust his willpower and leave him unable to manage his consumption. Unlike prior models of self-control, a model with willpower depletion can explain the increasing consumption sequences observable in high frequency data (and corresponding laboratory findings), the apparent links between unrelated self-control behaviors, and the altered economic behavior following imposition of cognitive loads. At the same time, willpower depletion provides an alternative explanation for a taste for commitment, intertemporal preference reversals, and procrastination. Accounting for willpower depletion thus provides a more unified theory of time preference. It also provides an explanation for anomalous intratemporal behaviors such as low correlations between health-related activities.

The bitter truth about sugar and willpower

Dual-process theories of higher order cognition (DPTs) have been enjoying much success, particularly since Kahneman’s 2002 Nobel prize address and recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2009). Historically, DPTs have attempted to provide a conceptual framework that helps classify and predict differences in patterns of behavior found under some circumstances and not others in a host of reasoning, judgment, and decision-making tasks. As evidence has changed and techniques for examining behavior have moved on, so too have DPTs. Killing two birds with one stone, Evans and Stanovich (2013, this issue) respond to five main criticisms of DPTs. Along with addressing each criticism in turn, they set out to clarify the essential defining characteristics that distinguish one form of higher order cognition from the other. The aim of this commentary is to consider the defining characteristics of Type 1 and Type 2 processing that have been proposed and to suggest that the evidence can be taken to support quantitative differences rather than qualitatively distinct processes

Motivation and Performance, Blog 2

Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Motivation and Performance, Blog 12

Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book