The model of the brain is that there are different parts that want different things. When the parts disagree, we have a “willpower challenge”. In this scenario, the decision is kicked to some higher subroutine in the prefrontal cortex, which takes energy.
The speaker presented five experiments (actual studies associated with each point):
Sleep and meditation: For former addicts, highly correlated with resisting relapse. Why? fMRI reveals sleep lack leads to less activity in the prefrontal cortex, where willpower challenges are decided.
Feeling regret diminishes future willpower. Better to be mindful of a lapse, and non judgmentally develop a positive intention for the future. (experiments about dieters and drinkers).
Concretely imagining and identifying with your future self helps you develop willpower. Specific exercises were suggested, could be useful for meet-ups? (around 27-36 minute mark for this point)
Defensive pessimism. Imagine how/why you will fail at your goal. Imagine concrete steps. Write it all down, revise when something different happens.
Visualize strong cravings as a wave. Watch the wave, and let it pass by. Doing this under stressful circumstances helped cut future stress-related urges. (around 46 mins)
Defensive pessimism. Imagine how/why you will fail at your goal. Imagine concrete steps. Write it all down, revise when something different happens.
Gads, no. I’ve got a brain that sees things potential problems. I’ve concluded that spending your time picturing failure is a great way to invoke akrasia—by focusing on failure scenarios, you develop an availability bias for failure scenarios. I call that the “futility bias”.
I need to spend more time imagining how things will succeed.
Summary:
The model of the brain is that there are different parts that want different things. When the parts disagree, we have a “willpower challenge”. In this scenario, the decision is kicked to some higher subroutine in the prefrontal cortex, which takes energy.
The speaker presented five experiments (actual studies associated with each point):
Sleep and meditation: For former addicts, highly correlated with resisting relapse.
Why? fMRI reveals sleep lack leads to less activity in the prefrontal cortex, where willpower challenges are decided.
Feeling regret diminishes future willpower. Better to be mindful of a lapse, and non judgmentally develop a positive intention for the future. (experiments about dieters and drinkers).
Concretely imagining and identifying with your future self helps you develop willpower. Specific exercises were suggested, could be useful for meet-ups? (around 27-36 minute mark for this point)
Defensive pessimism. Imagine how/why you will fail at your goal. Imagine concrete steps. Write it all down, revise when something different happens.
Visualize strong cravings as a wave. Watch the wave, and let it pass by. Doing this under stressful circumstances helped cut future stress-related urges. (around 46 mins)
Gads, no. I’ve got a brain that sees things potential problems. I’ve concluded that spending your time picturing failure is a great way to invoke akrasia—by focusing on failure scenarios, you develop an availability bias for failure scenarios. I call that the “futility bias”.
I need to spend more time imagining how things will succeed.
I hope you realize the irony in imagining yourself failing at the imagining yourself failing exercise.
If imagining a failure brings akrasia, what’s wrong about imagining oneself failing at doing undesired things?
The dangerous thing is imagining oneself failing at things one wants to happen.
Thanks, this is a very useful summary.