February 7, 2013 • 30 mins
You use it every day to overcome your lower self (which wants you to eat cake until your vision blurs) in pursuit of the goals of your higher self (which wants you to not develop Type-II diabetes). Yet it was only in the 1990s that researchers began to understand what makes our willpower and how it behaves.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clarkin sitting across from me putting on his Love Your Mama.
Umlit ball, what what Philip Flavors? That is almond? Actually
is yummy. Let's look at that plug right out of
(00:22):
the gate. This is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hello. Those
are nice lips you got there, man. Wow, they're now
moistified like moist bologney. Yep. Well, the two of us
get together as we are right now, and you have
yourself Stuff you should know the podcast. Nope, this is
the podcast. It ain't going nowhere. It ain't gonna change.
Don't worry, folks. Yeah, same as it ever was. If
(00:45):
you love the TV show, we thank you. If you
don't like it, hang out with us here online. Yeah uh,
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our new website, the home of Chuck Josh Stuff you
should Know dot com. This is pretty cool. I don't
mind saying words about this because we got a new
website and it's like, it's awesome. It's got video and
(01:07):
and blogs and photos and it's like all sorts of
cool stuff. It's us. It's our house on the on
the web. It's really cool. I mean stuff. You should
know dot com it's our website, mind blowing, five years
in the making. Yeah. So uh. And then not to
be confused with our Twitter handle, s y sk podcast.
Not to be confused with our Facebook page, Facebook, dot
com slash stuff. You should know, boy your front load
(01:28):
this one. Yeah, alright, all that's out of the way, right. Um, So, Chuck,
you're doing good, You're feeling well. I'm not feeling great,
but you know, yeah, you're ready to be done. No,
I'm ready to talk about willpower though, because it is
a topic that I struggle with, as do most people.
I think, like you struggle with the topic, or you
struggle with willpower. I think everybody struggles with willpower. Oh yeah, well,
(01:50):
as a matter of fact, um, I think you're absolutely right.
There is a very famous guy named Plato, famous Greek
philosopher Plato. Plato, Plato, yes not Plato, right, um, And
Plato decided well suggested that the entire human experience, that
(02:11):
the sum of human existence could be basically nailed down
with just this. You have a higher self and a
lower self and your purpose for living is to overcome
the usually more powerful urges of the lower self in
(02:32):
order to fulfill the goals of the higher self. I
am down without it makes uttering complete sense. I don't
know about the reason for living, but the struggle man
struggle or at least okay, Yeah, like that's if you're born.
You're going to face that, but you're going to face
it in varying degrees because, as we found, willpower, which
(02:53):
is what you use to get over your lower urges
and pursue your higher goals. Um, it comes in differing
amounts for differing people, different people. Yeah, and it. And
Robert Lamb wrote the original article from house Stuff Works
from Stuff to Blow your Mind, and he points out
that we're at odds with our own, uh nature, as
(03:15):
we have evolved here on the planet because you know,
we craved sugary sweet things because sugar gave us lots
of energy back in the day, and back in the
day they didn't have little debby cakes within hands reach
at all times. So we're sort of at odds with ourselves.
And he points out sexually as well, um, we evolved
(03:35):
to spread the seed and procreate as much as possible
to ensure the survival of the species. And um, nowadays
you can't really do that stuff, or if you do,
you're a flander or a jerk or your spreading disease
and your public health nuisance. Yeah. So, um, we're at
odds with ourselves, with our very existence. Yeah, and not
(03:56):
only internally, but you make the point, um as a
side as well. I mean, society and evolution tussle. So
you can make the case that society represents our higher
self and you know, are what we are, basic instincts
that we've evolved to are are lower selves. So that's
what's going on. And it's will power, will power that
(04:16):
will get us over the bumps that come along in
life inevitably. Yeah. And if I think most people relate
will power to things like eating or going to the gym,
or indulging in uh uh sexual proclivities and things like that,
But I think it's broader than that. In general. I
think it's the will to, like Plato said, to strive too,
(04:40):
I guess, do the right thing. Yeah, by yourself, by others,
by society at large. Right. And I guess also, um,
how often you come up against that? How often you
have to exercise willpower because you you just hit it
on the head. Will Power is the act of making
a decision. You're deciding to do something or not to
do something. Um, how often you do that it does
(05:03):
depend on how you define the world around you, Like,
are these things you know? Are you surrounded by temptations
that you have to ward off all the time and
you're paying attention to it and they're always closing in? Uh?
If you like that, then you're going to exercise your
willpower a lot. If you don't see the world as temptations,
you give into them all the time, you're not going
(05:24):
to If you look at the world as something that
you can handle, you're probably not gonna have to exercise
your willpower too much then either. But it's all they're all.
Those are three different ways of of living and they
all are I guess described by willpower and how you
use it. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. Robert h
(05:44):
makes a point that has backed up somewhat by science,
actually completely by science. The and he he puts in
terms of a video game, which makes sense that if
you were a video game and you have a willpower meter,
that that willpower meter is replenished and depleted on a daily,
probably hourly basis. And the more you uh use your
(06:07):
willpower and say, you know what, I'm not going to
have that little debby cake, Your little willpower meter goes
down and it depletes itself, so you're not going to
have as much willpower maybe for the next decision. Right.
It's really interesting. Yeah, that's um pretty new. Our understanding
of willpower like that is very new. The first guy
to really kind of put it out like that was
(06:28):
Freud Um and he basically said, uh, you we have
this thing called willpower. We have an ego. Yeah, that's
that's what the Freudians associate with willpowers, the ego, and
your ego is this finite thing. It has a finite
energy reserve. It uses energy, and therefore it can be sapped.
(06:49):
And then Freud fell out of fashion, and um, everybody
just kind of stopped looking at willpower that way. And
uh it wasn't until in Florida State University psychologist named
Roy uh Baumeister the bomb he uh he figured out
through this test using chocolate and radishes. I believe that, um, you,
(07:13):
if you are staving off temptation using willpower, you actually
do terribly on like another test of willpower. Yeah, they
used persistence tests UM basically puzzles that you have to
just keep at it and keep at it's not something
you could complete immediately, And offered some people chocolate chip
(07:34):
cookies and other chocolate treats of their liking and offered
other people radishes instead, which is not a fair fight, right,
I mean, he really stacked the deck like maybe a radish,
a shaved radish in a salad or something. But if
all you're looking at is a plate of radish, then yeah,
I would take the cookie. So what he found out though,
was the people who ate the radishes had more trouble
(07:57):
completing the test. I guess because I guess the ideas
they're using up all their willpower to not eat the cookie,
so they don't have time for the test the persistence.
And there was also a another kind of follow up
study a few years after that by um the the
University of Iowa professor with the greatest name of all
of the faculty there, Baba shiv Um and uh Dr
(08:20):
shiv Um, had a uh basically tested willpower by saying
this group is going to remember a two digit number,
and this group is gonna remember a seven digit number
and then we're gonna test their willpower um by tempting
them with chocolate cake and uh. Dr Shiv found that
there was the people who were using their working memory
(08:42):
their cognitive capacity to remember the seven digit number had
a harder time resisting. So it basically proves that we
use our working memory to resist temptation. And I guess
it's something like reminding yourself, you know, at the at
the forefront of your mind, not to do something, you know,
until the temptation pasts. Who knows, Yeah, maybe I had
(09:03):
that cookie yesterday, so man, I can't eat it today.
Or we use our working memory to remind ourselves of
our long term goals in the face of a short
term reward. Well, that's one of the big keys I think. Yeah,
and uh, that's something Robert hits on, which is I
want that cookie now, and I know bikini seasons coming up,
and you've seen me in a bikini. Josh, it's not pretty.
(09:25):
I will never get that out of my memory, working
memory or other one that bikini. And but that's sort
of what we're at odds with is the short term
I think humans as a group tend to enjoy the
short short term pleasures and if you truly learn to
(09:46):
conquer that in in uh lieu of long term gain,
that's when you're like you're winning, is Charlie Sheen would say,
right exactly, Although Charlie Sheen is not exactly one who's
known to exercise the willpower. No, you know, that was
a really ad person to tap for that, But well
I think that's the opposite he was. He thought winning
was the short term game. Yeah, I guess yeah, yeah,
(10:09):
people like when you guys record this, but it's been
I think today might be the very day where you
could get away with it. So it was perfect by
the way. Um, so from all these tests, like when
Baumeister um put his study ego depletion colon is the
active self a limited resource, it just basically kicked off
(10:32):
the slew of follow up studies from Dr Shiv and others,
and um. One of the things that they found was
that you can kind of watch people exercise willpower on
the old Wonder machine. Yeah yeah, um. Using m r
s they put people in and had them think about,
I guess a suite or a health food and decide
(10:55):
between them and cal Tech. Yeah, And they found that
the venture. Amedial prefrontal cortex lights up when you're making
that decision when you're considering it, which made sense. They
I think they kind of expected that, but they were
also surprised to find that the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex um,
which is located a little further back, Um, that lit
(11:17):
up as well. And they think that that has lit
up for the people who made the good decision only
thank you. And they think that that's maybe part of
your that's part of the working memory where you're like, no,
I can't eat that, because that's tapping into that higher
self goal pursuit. That's the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex. Right,
(11:39):
you did a nice job there, by the way, thanks,
(12:09):
uh so. The bomber also went on to say that,
um he could. He compares the willpower, your own willpower
to a muscle or something like a muscle, and you
can deplete it, Like he said, if you overwork your muscles,
you're just gonna deplete your muscles and be worn out
at the end of the day. Or you can exercise
that muscle in a in a healthy way and make
(12:31):
it stronger in the long term. Right, Um, do you
do this after reading this, a third realized that I
actually kind of exercised willpower all the time. What you
I think you especially do so like, for example, I
have a mail key that I used to go get
the mail, right and we keep it in our car,
(12:52):
and I had to go to the car and get
the mail key and then go get the mail. And
it was cold out yesterday, and then on the way
back I could have just take in the mail key
inside with me and taking it back to the car,
and the next time I went to the car again
it was very cold. But instead I walked up a
flight of stairs, put the mail key into the car,
and then went back home. So you're you're you made
(13:14):
that decision and you struggled with it, even if in
a minor way. Yes, I did it specifically because there
was no reason whatsoever for me to do that rationally,
and as far as common sense went, there was no
there's no purpose to it. But by doing it, I
basically just exercised my willpower. It was something I didn't
really want to do, but it wasn't a big deal,
(13:34):
but it was I could like doing that accumulates. Yeah,
I think I think you and I are really different
in that way. I see you as someone who actively
works that muscle a lot on a daily basis, and
I don't enough and not that I just have no willpower,
but I don't give it, give decisions like that enough consideration.
(13:56):
Does that make sense completely? I was like, yeah, I'll
just go upstairs and the key on the coffee table,
which a sane person she kind of has that that thought.
I think that puts you in the same camp. Yeah,
but that doesn't ensure that I'm making good decisions for
my life, you know. You know, but I mean I
don't think you're making bad ones. But it's good to
self reflect, you know, Yeah, I do kind of It's
(14:18):
kind of fun. You know, it's like a game. Yeah,
I want to you know, It's it's like how Ramrod
Street can I stay in? You know? That's what I'm
building towards. Uh so um. Another thing Robert points out
from the science side of things is as far as
giving into the short term in favor of the long term,
is glucose plays a big part in that. And I
(14:39):
think they found that a quick um shot of sugar,
I don't think a whole lot can sometimes stave off
or build up that willpower. Reserve in the term. Yeah,
it's like, uh, you you were talking about how we
have like a UM willpower bar, and every time we
were this temptation is depleted a little more and more.
They found that a shot of glucose replenishes the willpower bar.
(15:01):
So is that in lieu of like, hey boy, I
really want that cupcake, but let me have the juice
box instead. That's the irony of it, is giving into
that cupcake may help you exercise your willpower with other
stuff later further on. Can't that weird? But yeah, I
mean if you had something healthier, that would be the
better choice. But the point is is like any kind
(15:22):
of shot of glucos has been shown to UM to
to re up your your willpower. And this was very
much poop pooed at first, this idea, UM, I think Baumeister,
This is really great article by John Tierney in New
York Times magazine. It's from UM the August before last.
It's called do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? Our buddy
Chad loves this proselytized this article. Remember, okay, this is
(15:46):
the one, so I strongly recommend everybody to read. It's
a good one. But um and and it it talks
about Baumeister like thinking that you know, glucose has something
to do with this um and it was poop pooed
at first, because everybody knows the brain uses the same
amount of energy pretty much all day long. So that
didn't make any sense. Like if you're if you're ego
depleted and you're you're suffering from some sort of willpower fatigue,
(16:10):
but your brain still using the same amount of energy,
those two don't jibe. Again with the m r I.
What they found was somebody suffering from ego depletion from
willpower fatigue who took a shot of glue coast or
whatever UM. Their brains lit up in areas that had
to do with exercising will power. So while your brain
(16:32):
was using the same amount of energy, it was using
them in different places when your willpower was fatigued. And
that gluecoast basically was like spinach to popeye for that
part of your brain that's charged with exercising willpower. Isn't
that Yeah? So what do you carry on a packet
sugar with you at all times? Come on sugar right now? Um? Also, uh,
(16:53):
the in that same article they talk about this uh,
this kind of landmark study of an Israeli parole board,
and um, they found that you if you were a
parole e and you came to them after it had
been a while since a break or lunch or breakfast,
your chances of being paroled dropped by like fifty or
(17:14):
sixty oh if the parole board had not had breakfast,
yes or no. If they if you came to them
like right after things got started, after breakfast or after lunch,
your chances of being paroled were like fifty to fifty
six greater than people who came to them for identical
crimes like a couple hours later. I'm sure that makes
(17:35):
the criminals of the world feel pretty great. Yeah, exactly.
So arbitrary. And they what they found is it's not laziness.
It's not like physical fatigue where like you can tell
you're tired. What our brains do is they employ the
strategy where you you are, you become risk averse, like
you don't want to make a decision, so you say,
you know what, I'm just gonna put this off. You're
(17:56):
gonna go back to jail. I'm not going to grant
your parole because that's risky behavior. To let you back
out in the world, and I'm just I've made too
many decisions today. But you're not thinking this. You just
say parole to nine and you have no idea why.
It just makes sense to you at the time. But
if you had had some gluecoast that same instance, you
may you may be like, well, yeah, I think you're
(18:17):
you're ready to come back out in society. That reminds
me of the band Rush, Yes, that we talked about before.
I remember this from when I was a teenager. You
know the lyric um Man, what song is it? If
you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice?
Fretty will Oh, yeah, that's from that song, of course.
I think on the original album jacket it says if
(18:39):
you choose not to decide, you cannot have made a choice.
Is the right? Yeah? My brother and I used to
laugh that. I think Neil Perd actually wrote a lot
of the lyrics back then that Getty Lee dislike, you know,
edged it out with events. But it's the complete opposite meanings.
So it's interesting that at some point Rush, I guess
that maybe a band argument or something. I'm glad Getty
Lee won. Yeah, you you have made a choice. No,
(19:01):
you cannot have made a choice. Just shut up, play drums.
Your voice is weird. I remember hearing that the first time.
I was like, oh man, oh yeah, blew me away?
Yeah yeah, free will. I can't believe I didn't remember
the name, Like, I can't think of the name of
this song, but it's about free will? Was it red
bar Chetta? All right? Oh? I didn't really fully get
(19:22):
the the Stanford UH psychologist Walton and Dweck, and that
is Dweck. It sounds like saying direct wrong. Um. I
didn't fully get that that They they said that people
UH who have will found willpower fatigue tend to slack
off when they felt their resolve wavering, but then people
(19:45):
who felt their resolve was limitless pressed on. I like that.
Just I don't get the point there. It seems like
a no brainer. Yeah, I think I think it is.
You may just be looking too deeply. It was like
what I was talking about earlier at the beginning, where
like depending on how you see the world, like do
you see the world is like, like you have willpower,
so you can overcome any temptation, You're going to last longer.
(20:09):
On tests of will power than somebody who is like, um,
I'm feeling kind of weak today, you know, and then
you're just gonna give in. Okay, So it is pretty simple. Yeah,
all right, I thought it was a dummy. Not only
is it simple, I managed to make it more complex
and talk about it at length. Uh. They do know
that people, generally there is some genetic component involved, Like
(20:31):
if your parents are super self disciplined, then you were
more likely to turn out that way, right. I found
that to be true from friends of mine whose parents
were like super self discipline and their kids kind of
turned out that way too. Yeah, but I wonder, And
Robert makes a point in the article like is it
genetic or epigenetic? Yeah, I don't know, probably both. Yeah,
I would think my guests, we just chose not to decide.
(20:54):
We cannot have made a choice. Uh. And then the
old marshmallow experiment this uh stand for not the prison experiment,
but the marshmallow experiment from the nineteen sixties, very famous
one where they placed these uh tortured these kids basically
by placing a marshmallow in front of them and saying,
if you hold off on eating that marshmallow in fifteen minutes,
(21:16):
you will have to, And of course not many of
the kids could hold out, but they found that the
ones who did hold out for the second marshmallow went
on in life to greater successes, at least if you
count s a T scores as a measure of success,
two points higher than the ones who chowed down on
the marshmallow, and the ones who ate the marshmallow later
(21:37):
on had struggles with relationships and stress and uh attention. Yeah,
so I wonder if that has even do with like
you know, O c D. I wonder as well, I
wonder how much um of our modern problems are really
just crises of willpower? Yeah, I wonder. Um there was
a follow up to that sixties experiment. There's been a bunch,
(21:58):
but there was one in at the University of Rochester
that was carried out last year that um found we
are more willing to exercise willpower if we think that
what we're holding out for is actually going to happen,
you know. Uh, And they did that by this is hilarious.
It's funny. He studies with kids are always they're so
cruel and funny. I mean, not the really truly cruel
(22:21):
ones that like any psychological study that has the kids
almost invariably has some cruel aspect to it, and this
one was no, uh, was no exception. Basically, uh, they said,
here's the control group, here's here's the experimental group, and
the control group, we want to give you some extra
art supplies. Let us go get them. And they came
(22:42):
back with some extra art supplies. The experimental group. They said, hey,
we're gonna get you some more art supplies. We'll be
right back. And they came back. They're like, we don't
have any more art supplies. We know you were really excited,
but sorry, you're gonna have to make do with that
old red pen. And then they tested them with the
marshmallow experiment it and found that the ones who had
gotten the art supplies, the promise hadn't been broken. Sure,
(23:05):
they held out longer than the ones who had been
lied to. Yeah, they're like, screw that, you're not bringing
me to marshmallows, this marshmallow right now exactly, I'm gonna
kick you in the shin afterwards too. I'll show you. Yeah,
that's not cruel on the level. What was that one?
The one kid, remember the that we talked about that
was tested on like oh, kept in a closet. No,
(23:28):
they tested fear conditioning and extension and the kid it
was little Albert where they like they would put a
bunny in his lap and then bang of metal with
a hammer and scare the Jesus out of him. Right,
And then they came to like fear rabbits, like there
was a search for him, right, and they eventually found him,
they thought, I think, so, I don't remember I wrote
(23:49):
a blog post that I'll have to republish or whatever
because it's been a while, I don't remember. But yeah,
they figured out who it was pretty much. So this
isn't on that level. No, no, no, this is just
Marshmallows yesterday. Um. So, oh, there's one other point I
wanted to bring up that I thought was pretty interesting
and horrible from that John Tierney article. Um, where with
(24:11):
with decision fatigue, with exercising willpower disproportionately affects the poor
and they think that possibly now, uh, that poverty exists
in a cycle because if you're a poor person, you
have to exercise willpower, you have to make more decisions
than somebody who has more resources, more money, like say
you're walking through the grocery store. Um, you know, I
(24:34):
want the soap and this food. If you're poor, you
might have to say I want both, but I have
to just buy one. I don't have enough for both,
So how much is it going to be? And their
willpower there there there, their resources of of willpower of
decision making become fatigued a lot faster because they have
to exercise it a lot more and they don't have
(24:56):
the uh, the resources to get themselves out of poverty,
to indulge or to like study or do you know,
do more that they already have the deck stacked against
them resource wise. But then you throw in this, this
idea of willpower. Possibly that's that makes it even more difficulty. Boy,
(25:18):
I never really thought about that. It's pretty interesting stuff.
It makes you, It makes me, you know, you feel
for him even more. Yeah, and it makes me feel
bad when say, do I want the peanut butter ganash
cupcake or the chocolate? You know what, Just go ahead
and give me both, right exactly, Well, you can buy
both and then just take one to somebody who's struggling
in the grocery store trying to figure out they're gonna
(25:39):
buy soap for food. It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah,
(26:12):
uh you got anything else? Man? No, this is this
is a good one. Yeah. I like willpower. It's fun.
Go out and exercise it in little ways. It's fun.
Or don't either that or um strap of car battery
to your inner thighs. It's just for fun. Uh okay. Well,
if you want to learn more about willpower and read
this good article by Robert Lamb, you can type in
(26:33):
willpower in the search bar at how stuff works dot
com and it will bring it up. And I said
search bar. So it's time for a listener mail, Yeah, Josh. Quickly,
before we do that, we need to say a special
thank you to a fan of ours who helped us
out with our Wikipedia page. Oh nice, thank you. And
he was very cool and and his name and he's
(26:55):
been mentioned on tech stuff evidently too. Oh well, this
guy's a star and we're not gonna help that against him.
And this is how he His name is felled A
N t r I K s h yadav y A
d A D And he says, you pronounce it won tricks.
The tea is soft though, as in math son trin trip. Yeah,
(27:19):
there you go, he he phonetically spelled out. He told
me what it sounded like, and I still can't quite
do it. So we just want to say thanks a
lot for helping us with the Wikipedia page and now
a listener mail that I'm gonna call. That's why sk
can help you get ladies. This is from Todd in
Oklahoma City. Guys and Jerry, I've come to the conclusion
(27:41):
that I may owe you a big thank you. Your
podcast has created the impression, whether fiction or reality, that
I am somehow a guy who knows about stuff with
the ladies. My new girlfriend, in fact, mentions as one
of my winning traits that I am often saying interesting
things and this really interested me, so I asked her
for some examples of things that I say, and it
(28:04):
was notable that every example that she sided was something
that I learned listening to your podcast at work. So
it is quite possible, sirs, that you and your podcast
made my baby fall in love with me. I'd like
to shake your hands. Every single guy should listen to
your podcasts because it may at least get you a
second date. And that is Todd from Oklahoma City, who
(28:25):
is banking on our knowledge to woo women. And I
guess you got a girlfriend of it. Good going, Todd.
Good for you. We're glad we could help. Man, we're married, dude,
so we we live vicariously through these emails. That's not true. Well, no,
I think it's great. I'm happy for Todd. I don't
mean I live vicariously. I wish I would. No, No,
(28:50):
I just mean like, that's great. I'm glad someone out
there is getting a date because of this. Yeah. I
love helping people find love connections. Yeah. As a matter
of fact, we should do a speed dating episode. I
wrote an article on it once and it's pretty neat. Yeah.
My friend p J E met p j he uh
he He just texted me yesterday and said, hey, this
girl he does a lot of online dating. He said
part of her profiles that she's like a huge fan
(29:12):
of you guys. And I said data. Yeah, well I
don't a data. Ye. There you go. You're doing it
all over the place. Man's right. Um, let's see if
we have affected your life positively. Um, we want to
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(29:34):
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
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Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clarkin sitting across from me putting on his Love Your Mama.
Umlit ball, what what Philip Flavors? That is almond? Actually
is yummy. Let's look at that plug right out of
(00:22):
the gate. This is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hello. Those
are nice lips you got there, man. Wow, they're now
moistified like moist bologney. Yep. Well, the two of us
get together as we are right now, and you have
yourself Stuff you should know the podcast. Nope, this is
the podcast. It ain't going nowhere. It ain't gonna change.
Don't worry, folks. Yeah, same as it ever was. If
(00:45):
you love the TV show, we thank you. If you
don't like it, hang out with us here online. Yeah uh,
not to be confused with our online presence, our website,
our new website, the home of Chuck Josh Stuff you
should Know dot com. This is pretty cool. I don't
mind saying words about this because we got a new
website and it's like, it's awesome. It's got video and
(01:07):
and blogs and photos and it's like all sorts of
cool stuff. It's us. It's our house on the on
the web. It's really cool. I mean stuff. You should
know dot com it's our website, mind blowing, five years
in the making. Yeah. So uh. And then not to
be confused with our Twitter handle, s y sk podcast.
Not to be confused with our Facebook page, Facebook, dot
com slash stuff. You should know, boy your front load
(01:28):
this one. Yeah, alright, all that's out of the way, right. Um, So, Chuck,
you're doing good, You're feeling well. I'm not feeling great,
but you know, yeah, you're ready to be done. No,
I'm ready to talk about willpower though, because it is
a topic that I struggle with, as do most people.
I think, like you struggle with the topic, or you
struggle with willpower. I think everybody struggles with willpower. Oh yeah, well,
(01:50):
as a matter of fact, um, I think you're absolutely right.
There is a very famous guy named Plato, famous Greek
philosopher Plato. Plato, Plato, yes not Plato, right, um, And
Plato decided well suggested that the entire human experience, that
(02:11):
the sum of human existence could be basically nailed down
with just this. You have a higher self and a
lower self and your purpose for living is to overcome
the usually more powerful urges of the lower self in
(02:32):
order to fulfill the goals of the higher self. I
am down without it makes uttering complete sense. I don't
know about the reason for living, but the struggle man
struggle or at least okay, Yeah, like that's if you're born.
You're going to face that, but you're going to face
it in varying degrees because, as we found, willpower, which
(02:53):
is what you use to get over your lower urges
and pursue your higher goals. Um, it comes in differing
amounts for differing people, different people. Yeah, and it. And
Robert Lamb wrote the original article from house Stuff Works
from Stuff to Blow your Mind, and he points out
that we're at odds with our own, uh nature, as
(03:15):
we have evolved here on the planet because you know,
we craved sugary sweet things because sugar gave us lots
of energy back in the day, and back in the
day they didn't have little debby cakes within hands reach
at all times. So we're sort of at odds with ourselves.
And he points out sexually as well, um, we evolved
(03:35):
to spread the seed and procreate as much as possible
to ensure the survival of the species. And um, nowadays
you can't really do that stuff, or if you do,
you're a flander or a jerk or your spreading disease
and your public health nuisance. Yeah. So, um, we're at
odds with ourselves, with our very existence. Yeah, and not
(03:56):
only internally, but you make the point, um as a
side as well. I mean, society and evolution tussle. So
you can make the case that society represents our higher
self and you know, are what we are, basic instincts
that we've evolved to are are lower selves. So that's
what's going on. And it's will power, will power that
(04:16):
will get us over the bumps that come along in
life inevitably. Yeah. And if I think most people relate
will power to things like eating or going to the gym,
or indulging in uh uh sexual proclivities and things like that,
But I think it's broader than that. In general. I
think it's the will to, like Plato said, to strive too,
(04:40):
I guess, do the right thing. Yeah, by yourself, by others,
by society at large. Right. And I guess also, um,
how often you come up against that? How often you
have to exercise willpower because you you just hit it
on the head. Will Power is the act of making
a decision. You're deciding to do something or not to
do something. Um, how often you do that it does
(05:03):
depend on how you define the world around you, Like,
are these things you know? Are you surrounded by temptations
that you have to ward off all the time and
you're paying attention to it and they're always closing in? Uh?
If you like that, then you're going to exercise your
willpower a lot. If you don't see the world as temptations,
you give into them all the time, you're not going
(05:24):
to If you look at the world as something that
you can handle, you're probably not gonna have to exercise
your willpower too much then either. But it's all they're all.
Those are three different ways of of living and they
all are I guess described by willpower and how you
use it. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. Robert h
(05:44):
makes a point that has backed up somewhat by science,
actually completely by science. The and he he puts in
terms of a video game, which makes sense that if
you were a video game and you have a willpower meter,
that that willpower meter is replenished and depleted on a daily,
probably hourly basis. And the more you uh use your
(06:07):
willpower and say, you know what, I'm not going to
have that little debby cake, Your little willpower meter goes
down and it depletes itself, so you're not going to
have as much willpower maybe for the next decision. Right.
It's really interesting. Yeah, that's um pretty new. Our understanding
of willpower like that is very new. The first guy
to really kind of put it out like that was
(06:28):
Freud Um and he basically said, uh, you we have
this thing called willpower. We have an ego. Yeah, that's
that's what the Freudians associate with willpowers, the ego, and
your ego is this finite thing. It has a finite
energy reserve. It uses energy, and therefore it can be sapped.
(06:49):
And then Freud fell out of fashion, and um, everybody
just kind of stopped looking at willpower that way. And
uh it wasn't until in Florida State University psychologist named
Roy uh Baumeister the bomb he uh he figured out
through this test using chocolate and radishes. I believe that, um, you,
(07:13):
if you are staving off temptation using willpower, you actually
do terribly on like another test of willpower. Yeah, they
used persistence tests UM basically puzzles that you have to
just keep at it and keep at it's not something
you could complete immediately, And offered some people chocolate chip
(07:34):
cookies and other chocolate treats of their liking and offered
other people radishes instead, which is not a fair fight, right,
I mean, he really stacked the deck like maybe a radish,
a shaved radish in a salad or something. But if
all you're looking at is a plate of radish, then yeah,
I would take the cookie. So what he found out though,
was the people who ate the radishes had more trouble
(07:57):
completing the test. I guess because I guess the ideas
they're using up all their willpower to not eat the cookie,
so they don't have time for the test the persistence.
And there was also a another kind of follow up
study a few years after that by um the the
University of Iowa professor with the greatest name of all
of the faculty there, Baba shiv Um and uh Dr
(08:20):
shiv Um, had a uh basically tested willpower by saying
this group is going to remember a two digit number,
and this group is gonna remember a seven digit number
and then we're gonna test their willpower um by tempting
them with chocolate cake and uh. Dr Shiv found that
there was the people who were using their working memory
(08:42):
their cognitive capacity to remember the seven digit number had
a harder time resisting. So it basically proves that we
use our working memory to resist temptation. And I guess
it's something like reminding yourself, you know, at the at
the forefront of your mind, not to do something, you know,
until the temptation pasts. Who knows, Yeah, maybe I had
(09:03):
that cookie yesterday, so man, I can't eat it today.
Or we use our working memory to remind ourselves of
our long term goals in the face of a short
term reward. Well, that's one of the big keys I think. Yeah,
and uh, that's something Robert hits on, which is I
want that cookie now, and I know bikini seasons coming up,
and you've seen me in a bikini. Josh, it's not pretty.
(09:25):
I will never get that out of my memory, working
memory or other one that bikini. And but that's sort
of what we're at odds with is the short term
I think humans as a group tend to enjoy the
short short term pleasures and if you truly learn to
(09:46):
conquer that in in uh lieu of long term gain,
that's when you're like you're winning, is Charlie Sheen would say,
right exactly, Although Charlie Sheen is not exactly one who's
known to exercise the willpower. No, you know, that was
a really ad person to tap for that, But well
I think that's the opposite he was. He thought winning
was the short term game. Yeah, I guess yeah, yeah,
(10:09):
people like when you guys record this, but it's been
I think today might be the very day where you
could get away with it. So it was perfect by
the way. Um, so from all these tests, like when
Baumeister um put his study ego depletion colon is the
active self a limited resource, it just basically kicked off
(10:32):
the slew of follow up studies from Dr Shiv and others,
and um. One of the things that they found was
that you can kind of watch people exercise willpower on
the old Wonder machine. Yeah yeah, um. Using m r
s they put people in and had them think about,
I guess a suite or a health food and decide
(10:55):
between them and cal Tech. Yeah, And they found that
the venture. Amedial prefrontal cortex lights up when you're making
that decision when you're considering it, which made sense. They
I think they kind of expected that, but they were
also surprised to find that the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex um,
which is located a little further back, Um, that lit
(11:17):
up as well. And they think that that has lit
up for the people who made the good decision only
thank you. And they think that that's maybe part of
your that's part of the working memory where you're like, no,
I can't eat that, because that's tapping into that higher
self goal pursuit. That's the Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex. Right,
(11:39):
you did a nice job there, by the way, thanks,
(12:09):
uh so. The bomber also went on to say that,
um he could. He compares the willpower, your own willpower
to a muscle or something like a muscle, and you
can deplete it, Like he said, if you overwork your muscles,
you're just gonna deplete your muscles and be worn out
at the end of the day. Or you can exercise
that muscle in a in a healthy way and make
(12:31):
it stronger in the long term. Right, Um, do you
do this after reading this, a third realized that I
actually kind of exercised willpower all the time. What you
I think you especially do so like, for example, I
have a mail key that I used to go get
the mail, right and we keep it in our car,
(12:52):
and I had to go to the car and get
the mail key and then go get the mail. And
it was cold out yesterday, and then on the way
back I could have just take in the mail key
inside with me and taking it back to the car,
and the next time I went to the car again
it was very cold. But instead I walked up a
flight of stairs, put the mail key into the car,
and then went back home. So you're you're you made
(13:14):
that decision and you struggled with it, even if in
a minor way. Yes, I did it specifically because there
was no reason whatsoever for me to do that rationally,
and as far as common sense went, there was no
there's no purpose to it. But by doing it, I
basically just exercised my willpower. It was something I didn't
really want to do, but it wasn't a big deal,
(13:34):
but it was I could like doing that accumulates. Yeah,
I think I think you and I are really different
in that way. I see you as someone who actively
works that muscle a lot on a daily basis, and
I don't enough and not that I just have no willpower,
but I don't give it, give decisions like that enough consideration.
(13:56):
Does that make sense completely? I was like, yeah, I'll
just go upstairs and the key on the coffee table,
which a sane person she kind of has that that thought.
I think that puts you in the same camp. Yeah,
but that doesn't ensure that I'm making good decisions for
my life, you know. You know, but I mean I
don't think you're making bad ones. But it's good to
self reflect, you know, Yeah, I do kind of It's
(14:18):
kind of fun. You know, it's like a game. Yeah,
I want to you know, It's it's like how Ramrod
Street can I stay in? You know? That's what I'm
building towards. Uh so um. Another thing Robert points out
from the science side of things is as far as
giving into the short term in favor of the long term,
is glucose plays a big part in that. And I
(14:39):
think they found that a quick um shot of sugar,
I don't think a whole lot can sometimes stave off
or build up that willpower. Reserve in the term. Yeah,
it's like, uh, you you were talking about how we
have like a UM willpower bar, and every time we
were this temptation is depleted a little more and more.
They found that a shot of glucose replenishes the willpower bar.
(15:01):
So is that in lieu of like, hey boy, I
really want that cupcake, but let me have the juice
box instead. That's the irony of it, is giving into
that cupcake may help you exercise your willpower with other
stuff later further on. Can't that weird? But yeah, I
mean if you had something healthier, that would be the
better choice. But the point is is like any kind
(15:22):
of shot of glucos has been shown to UM to
to re up your your willpower. And this was very
much poop pooed at first, this idea, UM, I think Baumeister,
This is really great article by John Tierney in New
York Times magazine. It's from UM the August before last.
It's called do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? Our buddy
Chad loves this proselytized this article. Remember, okay, this is
(15:46):
the one, so I strongly recommend everybody to read. It's
a good one. But um and and it it talks
about Baumeister like thinking that you know, glucose has something
to do with this um and it was poop pooed
at first, because everybody knows the brain uses the same
amount of energy pretty much all day long. So that
didn't make any sense. Like if you're if you're ego
depleted and you're you're suffering from some sort of willpower fatigue,
(16:10):
but your brain still using the same amount of energy,
those two don't jibe. Again with the m r I.
What they found was somebody suffering from ego depletion from
willpower fatigue who took a shot of glue coast or
whatever UM. Their brains lit up in areas that had
to do with exercising will power. So while your brain
(16:32):
was using the same amount of energy, it was using
them in different places when your willpower was fatigued. And
that gluecoast basically was like spinach to popeye for that
part of your brain that's charged with exercising willpower. Isn't
that Yeah? So what do you carry on a packet
sugar with you at all times? Come on sugar right now? Um? Also, uh,
(16:53):
the in that same article they talk about this uh,
this kind of landmark study of an Israeli parole board,
and um, they found that you if you were a
parole e and you came to them after it had
been a while since a break or lunch or breakfast,
your chances of being paroled dropped by like fifty or
(17:14):
sixty oh if the parole board had not had breakfast,
yes or no. If they if you came to them
like right after things got started, after breakfast or after lunch,
your chances of being paroled were like fifty to fifty
six greater than people who came to them for identical
crimes like a couple hours later. I'm sure that makes
(17:35):
the criminals of the world feel pretty great. Yeah, exactly.
So arbitrary. And they what they found is it's not laziness.
It's not like physical fatigue where like you can tell
you're tired. What our brains do is they employ the
strategy where you you are, you become risk averse, like
you don't want to make a decision, so you say,
you know what, I'm just gonna put this off. You're
(17:56):
gonna go back to jail. I'm not going to grant
your parole because that's risky behavior. To let you back
out in the world, and I'm just I've made too
many decisions today. But you're not thinking this. You just
say parole to nine and you have no idea why.
It just makes sense to you at the time. But
if you had had some gluecoast that same instance, you
may you may be like, well, yeah, I think you're
(18:17):
you're ready to come back out in society. That reminds
me of the band Rush, Yes, that we talked about before.
I remember this from when I was a teenager. You
know the lyric um Man, what song is it? If
you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice?
Fretty will Oh, yeah, that's from that song, of course.
I think on the original album jacket it says if
(18:39):
you choose not to decide, you cannot have made a choice.
Is the right? Yeah? My brother and I used to
laugh that. I think Neil Perd actually wrote a lot
of the lyrics back then that Getty Lee dislike, you know,
edged it out with events. But it's the complete opposite meanings.
So it's interesting that at some point Rush, I guess
that maybe a band argument or something. I'm glad Getty
Lee won. Yeah, you you have made a choice. No,
(19:01):
you cannot have made a choice. Just shut up, play drums.
Your voice is weird. I remember hearing that the first time.
I was like, oh man, oh yeah, blew me away?
Yeah yeah, free will. I can't believe I didn't remember
the name, Like, I can't think of the name of
this song, but it's about free will? Was it red
bar Chetta? All right? Oh? I didn't really fully get
(19:22):
the the Stanford UH psychologist Walton and Dweck, and that
is Dweck. It sounds like saying direct wrong. Um. I
didn't fully get that that They they said that people
UH who have will found willpower fatigue tend to slack
off when they felt their resolve wavering, but then people
(19:45):
who felt their resolve was limitless pressed on. I like that.
Just I don't get the point there. It seems like
a no brainer. Yeah, I think I think it is.
You may just be looking too deeply. It was like
what I was talking about earlier at the beginning, where
like depending on how you see the world, like do
you see the world is like, like you have willpower,
so you can overcome any temptation, You're going to last longer.
(20:09):
On tests of will power than somebody who is like, um,
I'm feeling kind of weak today, you know, and then
you're just gonna give in. Okay, So it is pretty simple. Yeah,
all right, I thought it was a dummy. Not only
is it simple, I managed to make it more complex
and talk about it at length. Uh. They do know
that people, generally there is some genetic component involved, Like
(20:31):
if your parents are super self disciplined, then you were
more likely to turn out that way, right. I found
that to be true from friends of mine whose parents
were like super self discipline and their kids kind of
turned out that way too. Yeah, but I wonder, And
Robert makes a point in the article like is it
genetic or epigenetic? Yeah, I don't know, probably both. Yeah,
I would think my guests, we just chose not to decide.
(20:54):
We cannot have made a choice. Uh. And then the
old marshmallow experiment this uh stand for not the prison experiment,
but the marshmallow experiment from the nineteen sixties, very famous
one where they placed these uh tortured these kids basically
by placing a marshmallow in front of them and saying,
if you hold off on eating that marshmallow in fifteen minutes,
(21:16):
you will have to, And of course not many of
the kids could hold out, but they found that the
ones who did hold out for the second marshmallow went
on in life to greater successes, at least if you
count s a T scores as a measure of success,
two points higher than the ones who chowed down on
the marshmallow, and the ones who ate the marshmallow later
(21:37):
on had struggles with relationships and stress and uh attention. Yeah,
so I wonder if that has even do with like
you know, O c D. I wonder as well, I
wonder how much um of our modern problems are really
just crises of willpower? Yeah, I wonder. Um there was
a follow up to that sixties experiment. There's been a bunch,
(21:58):
but there was one in at the University of Rochester
that was carried out last year that um found we
are more willing to exercise willpower if we think that
what we're holding out for is actually going to happen,
you know. Uh, And they did that by this is hilarious.
It's funny. He studies with kids are always they're so
cruel and funny. I mean, not the really truly cruel
(22:21):
ones that like any psychological study that has the kids
almost invariably has some cruel aspect to it, and this
one was no, uh, was no exception. Basically, uh, they said,
here's the control group, here's here's the experimental group, and
the control group, we want to give you some extra
art supplies. Let us go get them. And they came
(22:42):
back with some extra art supplies. The experimental group. They said, hey,
we're gonna get you some more art supplies. We'll be
right back. And they came back. They're like, we don't
have any more art supplies. We know you were really excited,
but sorry, you're gonna have to make do with that
old red pen. And then they tested them with the
marshmallow experiment it and found that the ones who had
gotten the art supplies, the promise hadn't been broken. Sure,
(23:05):
they held out longer than the ones who had been
lied to. Yeah, they're like, screw that, you're not bringing
me to marshmallows, this marshmallow right now exactly, I'm gonna
kick you in the shin afterwards too. I'll show you. Yeah,
that's not cruel on the level. What was that one?
The one kid, remember the that we talked about that
was tested on like oh, kept in a closet. No,
(23:28):
they tested fear conditioning and extension and the kid it
was little Albert where they like they would put a
bunny in his lap and then bang of metal with
a hammer and scare the Jesus out of him. Right,
And then they came to like fear rabbits, like there
was a search for him, right, and they eventually found him,
they thought, I think, so, I don't remember I wrote
(23:49):
a blog post that I'll have to republish or whatever
because it's been a while, I don't remember. But yeah,
they figured out who it was pretty much. So this
isn't on that level. No, no, no, this is just
Marshmallows yesterday. Um. So, oh, there's one other point I
wanted to bring up that I thought was pretty interesting
and horrible from that John Tierney article. Um, where with
(24:11):
with decision fatigue, with exercising willpower disproportionately affects the poor
and they think that possibly now, uh, that poverty exists
in a cycle because if you're a poor person, you
have to exercise willpower, you have to make more decisions
than somebody who has more resources, more money, like say
you're walking through the grocery store. Um, you know, I
(24:34):
want the soap and this food. If you're poor, you
might have to say I want both, but I have
to just buy one. I don't have enough for both,
So how much is it going to be? And their
willpower there there there, their resources of of willpower of
decision making become fatigued a lot faster because they have
to exercise it a lot more and they don't have
(24:56):
the uh, the resources to get themselves out of poverty,
to indulge or to like study or do you know,
do more that they already have the deck stacked against
them resource wise. But then you throw in this, this
idea of willpower. Possibly that's that makes it even more difficulty. Boy,
(25:18):
I never really thought about that. It's pretty interesting stuff.
It makes you, It makes me, you know, you feel
for him even more. Yeah, and it makes me feel
bad when say, do I want the peanut butter ganash
cupcake or the chocolate? You know what, Just go ahead
and give me both, right exactly, Well, you can buy
both and then just take one to somebody who's struggling
in the grocery store trying to figure out they're gonna
(25:39):
buy soap for food. It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah,
(26:12):
uh you got anything else? Man? No, this is this
is a good one. Yeah. I like willpower. It's fun.
Go out and exercise it in little ways. It's fun.
Or don't either that or um strap of car battery
to your inner thighs. It's just for fun. Uh okay. Well,
if you want to learn more about willpower and read
this good article by Robert Lamb, you can type in
(26:33):
willpower in the search bar at how stuff works dot
com and it will bring it up. And I said
search bar. So it's time for a listener mail, Yeah, Josh. Quickly,
before we do that, we need to say a special
thank you to a fan of ours who helped us
out with our Wikipedia page. Oh nice, thank you. And
he was very cool and and his name and he's
(26:55):
been mentioned on tech stuff evidently too. Oh well, this
guy's a star and we're not gonna help that against him.
And this is how he His name is felled A
N t r I K s h yadav y A
d A D And he says, you pronounce it won tricks.
The tea is soft though, as in math son trin trip. Yeah,
(27:19):
there you go, he he phonetically spelled out. He told
me what it sounded like, and I still can't quite
do it. So we just want to say thanks a
lot for helping us with the Wikipedia page and now
a listener mail that I'm gonna call. That's why sk
can help you get ladies. This is from Todd in
Oklahoma City. Guys and Jerry, I've come to the conclusion
(27:41):
that I may owe you a big thank you. Your
podcast has created the impression, whether fiction or reality, that
I am somehow a guy who knows about stuff with
the ladies. My new girlfriend, in fact, mentions as one
of my winning traits that I am often saying interesting
things and this really interested me, so I asked her
for some examples of things that I say, and it
(28:04):
was notable that every example that she sided was something
that I learned listening to your podcast at work. So
it is quite possible, sirs, that you and your podcast
made my baby fall in love with me. I'd like
to shake your hands. Every single guy should listen to
your podcasts because it may at least get you a
second date. And that is Todd from Oklahoma City, who
(28:25):
is banking on our knowledge to woo women. And I
guess you got a girlfriend of it. Good going, Todd.
Good for you. We're glad we could help. Man, we're married, dude,
so we we live vicariously through these emails. That's not true. Well, no,
I think it's great. I'm happy for Todd. I don't
mean I live vicariously. I wish I would. No, No,
(28:50):
I just mean like, that's great. I'm glad someone out
there is getting a date because of this. Yeah. I
love helping people find love connections. Yeah. As a matter
of fact, we should do a speed dating episode. I
wrote an article on it once and it's pretty neat. Yeah.
My friend p J E met p j he uh
he He just texted me yesterday and said, hey, this
girl he does a lot of online dating. He said
part of her profiles that she's like a huge fan
(29:12):
of you guys. And I said data. Yeah, well I
don't a data. Ye. There you go. You're doing it
all over the place. Man's right. Um, let's see if
we have affected your life positively. Um, we want to
hear about it, not negatively, just positively. You can tweet
to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
(29:34):
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Discovery dot com, and you can always find us hanging
out at our home on the web. Stuff you Should
Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
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