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Pumping Up the Self-Control in the Age of Temptations

Passing up a high-calorie treat would be easier, researchers say, if you could somehow persuade yourself that doing without the sticky bun was fun.Credit...Chris Bickford for The New York Times

I HAVE a cold and a headache, and I just want to go to bed. But knowing that my editor is relying on me (and I’m relying on my next paycheck), I muster my willpower to stay at my computer and finish the column.

Willpower — or the lack of it. We hear about it a lot. We can blame overeating, overspending, undersaving and the subprime mortgage mess on a failure of self-control.

But is that right? Are we devoid of the inner discipline and stronger character our parents and grandparents apparently had?

“There is research that shows people still have the same self-control as in decades past, but we are bombarded more and more with temptations,” said Kathleen Vohs, associate professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. “Our psychological system is not set up to deal with all the potential immediate gratification.”

This isn’t new. Temptation, obviously, has been around forever. But since the Industrial Revolution, she said, the opportunities have increased along with idle time. And now, with goods and services available at a keystroke, with 24-hour corner stores, fast food and fast cash, we are inundated as never before.

The real question, then, is whether there’s anything we can do about it. Are there ways to build up willpower?

First, let’s define our terms. Willpower is a component of self-control, Professor Vohs said.

“Self-control is setting goals. Willpower is moving from the current place to where you want to go,” she said. The final step in the process — and the one most often ignored — is assessment, or measuring to see how well we’re doing in managing our self-control. For a dieter, for example, that would be stepping on a scale. For someone who tended to overspend, it would be checking bank statements.

Research has shown that willpower is somewhat like a muscle in that it can get fatigued if overused.

Here’s an example. In a number of similar experiments, research participants are randomly assigned to two groups. One group watches a funny film but is told not to laugh, while the control group can laugh at will. Or in another experiment, chocolate chip cookies and radishes are put out on a table and participants are instructed to eat the radishes, but not the cookies. The control group can choose what to eat.

Once the first task is completed, both groups are asked to complete a second task that requires some effort — solving complex anagrams, for example, or turning down free beer knowing that a driving test will follow.

The results? The group that had to resist temptation did not perform as well on the second task as the group that was allowed to give in to temptation, said Timothy A. Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The conclusion was that those who had to exert more willpower in the first task “exhausted their self-regulatory strength, at least temporarily, and therefore are unable to muster the self-regulation needed for the second task,” Professor Pychyl said.

One practical example, he noted, is that after a stressful day at work, studies show, people are less likely to exercise and more likely to watch television.

Of course, as with all personality traits, some people are born with a greater ability to exert willpower. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to increase it.

One method is to put in place external controls. If you feel you check your e-mail too frequently, install a program to shut it down temporarily. If you have trouble saving for retirement, you can have money automatically deducted from your paycheck. An extreme example in literature, Professor Pychyl said, was Odysseus asking his men to tie him to the mast to avoid his being lured by the Sirens’ singing.

But we don’t always have shipmates around to shield us from temptation, so we need to learn to do it on our own. Some new research has shown that self-control may be increased if it is seen as fun, not work.

Juliano Laran, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Miami, with Chris Janiszewski, a professor of marketing at the University of Florida, conducted experiments in which people were measured for high or low self-control with a test of 13 questions like, “I have a hard time breaking bad habits” or “I am good at resisting temptation.”

The participants were asked to hold pieces of candy between their fingers, put the candy in their mouths and take it out. They then moved on to unrelated tasks, but the candy was left on their desks without instructions about whether they could eat it or not.

Those who measured high in self-control didn’t eat as much candy as those who measured low. No surprise there. But it turns out those high in self-control perceived the initial task — playing with the candy — as fun, while those with low self-control viewed it as work.

But in experiments where instructions used the word “fun,” even those with low self-control exerted more willpower than expected, Professor Laran said.

Professor Pychyl, on the other hand, warns that trying to convince ourselves that self-control is easy won’t work.

“We’re constantly looking to sugarcoat it,” he said. “We say it shouldn’t be that hard, but it is hard. It’s a virtue, but I don’t see people exhorting it as a virtue. We don’t embrace the words dutiful and stick-to-itiveness.”

The good news is that research has shown us ways that we can improve our willpower.

“You can have the drive and desire, but not the skills,” said Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University. “That’s very different than having the skills, and not using them.”

You can learn techniques to achieve your goals, perhaps through a coach, a counselor or even a good self-help book.

But if you know what to do, but choose not to change, you need to examine why, Professor Ferrari said.

Being aware of societal pressures to shop, or to spend endless time e-mailing, posting on Twitter and social networking, is a good first step, he said. Then, rather than swearing you’ll stop spending or turn off that computer forever, simply make a choice not to buy a latte today, or to stop checking your computer for an hour, or a day (depending on your addiction).

Realize that “those temptations will always be there and you don’t need to act on them now,” Professor Vohs said. “Knowing that lessens the urgency and has a calming effect” and helps us resist the constant thrum of “buy it now” that permeates our lives.

People also tend to fall into two categories regarding self-control, she said — those who want to act immediately even if the action might be foolhardy and those who sit on the couch and procrastinate. There is overlap, but most people fall into one of these two groups, she said.

While the second group is harder to get motivated, both groups could be helped by setting specific goals, phrased in a certain way.

“ ‘If or when I do this, then I will do that,’ ” Professor Vohs said. “For example, ‘When I am done with work, I will go to the gym,’ works much better than ‘I should go to the gym.’ Or, ‘If I am offered dessert, I will ask for a cup of coffee instead.’ ”

And as we get older, we learn that there’s sometimes even a reward for exerting willpower. Take me, for instance. Now that I’ve finished my column, I can go to bed.

E-mail: Shortcuts@nytimes.com

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Pumping Up the Self-Control in the Age of Temptations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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