Willpower is a notoriously fickle thing. Some days, you can withstand even the
fiercest temptation. On other days, you
can be distracted from your goals by almost anything. There are clear differences between people as
well. Some people maintain a
single-minded focus on their goals, while others give in to the slightest
enticement.
What can you do in those situations in which your willpower
is going to let you down? At those
times, it can be helpful to cling to the people around you who are good at
resisting temptation. You can draw
strength from other people.
An article by Catherine Shea, Erin Davisson, and Grainne
Fitzsimons in the June, 2013 issue of Psychological Science
suggests that people with low self-control naturally value the self-control in
other people.
In one study, the researchers manipulated people’s
self-control resources using an ego depletion task. Some participants had to perform a moderately
difficult self-control task. They
watched a video and had to evaluate a character on the video. During the video, words flashed on the
task. The ego-depletion group was told
to ignore the words, while the control group watched the video with no
instructions. This task is known to wear
down people’s self-control abilities, which can cause self-control failures in
later situations.
After watching the video, participants read a vignette about
an office manager. The story either
suggested that the manager had a high, moderate, or low level of self-control.
They were asked to rate how good a leader the manager was likely to be.
Participants who had just done an ego depletion task and had a low level of
self-control resources gave higher ratings when reading the story about the
manager with a high level of self-control than when reading the story about the
manager with a low level of self-control.
Ratings of the manager with a moderate level of self-control came out in
between.
The participants who did the control task did not give
significantly different ratings to the three managers. They were less influenced by differences in
other people’s self-control.
A second study demonstrated a similar effect, but looked at
individual differences in participants’ self-control. Differences in self-control were measured
using the Stroop task. In the Stroop
task, people identify the color of the font of words. The words are names of colors. When the word names the same color as the
font, people are faster to name the color than when the word names a different
color from the font. The difference
between the speed of the consistent and inconsistent responses is a measure of
self-control. People with a high level
of self-control show less of a difference than those with a low level of
self-control.
The people with a low level of self-control (as measured by
the Stroop task) gave a similar pattern of ratings as those in the
ego-depletion condition of the previous study.
Their ratings differed substantially based on the level of self-control
of the manager. The people with a high
level of self-control did not differ much in their ratings of the manager.
A third study examined the relationship between the degree
of self-control of the members of a romantic couple and their level of
dependence on each other. A partner with
a low level of self-control relied much more on their significant other when
that person had a high level of self control than when that person had a low
level of self-control. A partner with a
high level of self-control relied on their significant other equally strongly
regardless of that person’s level of self-control.
These studies suggest that people naturally recognize the
role that other people can play to enhance their self-control. When a person has a low-level of self control
as a trait or when their willpower is tapped, they are much more prone to value
the willpower of other people than when their self-control resources are
high.
