The question we asked here is what research has to say about why they live the good life and how they make better choices.

– Integrating Models of Self-Regulation

O boy, look at that. A marshmallow and a pretzel. Which would you like to eat?

– Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification

Self-control is unnecessary. Emotion does not always work against goals. The findings of the famous marshmallow experiment no longer hold. There may be a way to eat the cake and still have it. The journey to a lofty destination does not have to resemble the experience of Sisyphus in the least. No pain, much gain.

It turns out emotions have been villainized for too long, as “the thing which distracts people away from their goals” (Duckworth et al. 2016(a), Gross, 2015, as cited in Inzlicht, 2021) and associated with mental weakness. The stoics for example aim to be detached from everything so as not to hanker after anything. David J Linden, who wrote the New York Times Bestseller, The Compass of Pleasure, cites “writings of Galen” who was a doctor in the Roman empire to claim that, the person who preached self-denial as a panacea (and whose words which have been accepted without much question) was in a very sedated or satiated state because of substance (ab)use. Naturally, he was very able to swear off the world and its vagaries.

In a very comprehensive review of extant models on self-regulation, published this year, Inzlicht and his colleagues repair the bad reputation of strong emotions and suggest instead that emotions are, “parts of the mind and body that both detract from (e.g., impulsive desire) and enhance (e.g., guilt, anxiety) self-regulation”. In essence, they suggest that in the battle between will and temptation, any victory is only pyrrhic.

The resource model (of self-regulation) of Baumeister and others (2007) tells us that self-control wanes over time and that if self-control has been used up for one endeavour, there will be little left to resist yet another temptation in say “one” (Randles et al., 2017, as cited in Inzlicht et al., 2021) or “four” (Blaine et al., 2016, as cited in Inzlicht et al., 2021) hours. In other words, self-control has been valorised beyond what it is realistically capable of. This is why multiple fronted battles are ill advised. It bears repeating. The amount of self-control available to any one person is too limited for it to be relied on to stay on track.

It is therefore not true that we need to increase self-control through self-denial or going without in order to achieve long term goals. There appears instead to be other habits of people who meet their goals which may or may not be achievements garnering social approval.
The idea that short-term gains have to be sacrificed for long-term ones has been popularised through many doctrines such that it has become an intuitive truth.

Parents and teachers would have heard of the marshmallow experiment which has been repeated with similar results. Toddlers and very young children between 3 and 6 were shown a marshmallow and a pretzel stick. They were asked which one they liked more. They were then told the following:

1. They would be left alone in the room with the two treats.
2. If they waited till the experimenter came back without being called back, they could have the snack they liked more.
3. If they could no longer wait and rang a bell to signal for the return of the experimenter, they could eat the snack they did not choose.

There were several conditions in which this experiment was conducted. In one case, a “Slinky” toy was made available for children to distract themselves with. In another, they were asked to think of something fun. In yet another, there was no toy and the children were not instructed to think of something fun. In 2 other conditions, the children were not told anything regarding the treats but just left alone with them.

Children who were asked to think of something fun could wait the longest, up to slightly less than 13 minutes. Children who had a toy to play with could wait up to slightly under 9 minutes. Children who had no toy and who were not asked to imagine anything fun could wait for about 30 seconds.

It was found through longitudinal studies that those who could delay gratification had better “cognitive and socio-emotional” development. However, Inzlicht and others (2021) pointed out that when “cognitive” and “socioeconomic factors” were taken into account, delay times were “no longer predictive”. This meant that the children who were found to have succeeded later in life did so less because they had better self-control and more because they could have had higher general intelligence (ability to achieve goals) or because they had more resources to rely on.

In the 2021 review, researchers suggest that those who are better able to meet their long-term goals are either able to succumb to temptation and yet get away unharmed or do not get tempted at all.

Those who manage to succumb to temptation and continue to achieve their goals generally have better ability to self-regulate. The term does not refer to self-control. Self-regulation, according to them refers to “steering one’s behaviour toward a desired end state”. This includes selecting a goal and taking steps to achieve that goal. It is also about monitoring progress and changing course if necessary to achieve a desired end state. It is about strategizing.

According to the researchers, people who are better able to achieve their goals choose multifinal goals which are basically ways to achieve more than one objective through one activity. They do not spend their time or energy resisting temptation. If they have fun, they would have factored that into their overall roadmap to success. So, someone good at self-regulation might find a painless or even rewarding way to achieve long term objectives. This is where the general intelligence comes into play.

Those who do not get tempted by short term gain at the expense of long-term gain have their eyes firmly fixed on the long-term goal. Like the children in the 1972 experiment on delayed gratification, they imagine the future and how good their future self would feel when their goal is reached. Present day treats pale in comparison to the anticipated pleasure of future success. This imagined future instantly triggers positive feelings which far outweigh those triggered by a distraction. This group therefore does not exercise any self-control because there is nothing to resist.

Those who want something truly, madly and deeply, can be anything they want to be.

The Brain Dojo