Only Willpower Counts As Self-control

But researcher Jordan Bridges and her colleagues hypothesized that such assessments of synchronic regulation rested on a faulty interpretation of the data, that supposed examples of effective purely diachronic strategies involved the use of willpower to impl...

Psychologists and economists have increasingly argued that because willpower is difficult to exercise, diachronic regulation is more effective than synchronic regulation. This conclusion is based in part on the failure of willpower-driven campaigns (such as Nancy Regan’s...

In Greek mythology, the story of Odysseus and the Sirens illustrates a paradigmatic example of self-control.

When the hero of Homer’s epic prepares to travel past the Sirens, mythical creatures who lure sailors with their enchanted singing, he instructs his crew to plug their ears with wax...

The research’s final experiment found that self-control in a diachronic case depends on whether a person uses synchronic regulation at two moments: when they a) initiate and b) follow-through on a plan to resist temptation.

Taken together, the results strongly sugge...

Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have reached the consensus that we can use two different kinds of regulation to achieve self-control: synchronic regulation and diachronic regulation.

Synchronic regulation relies on deliberate, effo...

Bridges said these findings are important for the study of self-control, and for how psychologists, philosophers, economists and clinical practitioners discuss these concepts.

“Scientific discussion, and science communication, can often involve debates over terms that don’t track ho...

“People often infer that it’s the diachronic strategy doing the self-control work, when really, moments of synchronic regulation are being amplified with diachronic strategy.

Specifically, people typically use willpower (synchronic regulation) to achieve their ...