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SYSK Selects: How Willpower Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: M Hey, everybody. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Selects.
0:03
Speaker 1: This is Chuck here this week. It's my pick and
0:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with how Willpower Works from February seven,
0:11
Speaker 1: And frankly, I'm picking this one because I need to
0:13
Speaker 1: listen to this one again because I have no willpower.
0:17
Speaker 1: That's something I need to work on, so I'm gonna
0:18
Speaker 1: check it out again. I encourage you to do the same.
0:21
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's pretty neat episode. So here we go
0:24
Speaker 1: with how Willpower Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:40
Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
0:47
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clarkin sitting across from me putting
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1:01
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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know boy your
2:04
Speaker 1: front load this one. Yeah alright, All that's out of
2:08
Speaker 1: the way, right. Um, So, Chuck, you're doing good, you're
2:10
Speaker 1: feeling well. I'm not feeling great, but you know, yeah,
2:15
Speaker 1: you're ready to be done. No. I'm ready to talk
2:17
Speaker 1: about willpower though, because it is a topic that I
2:21
Speaker 1: struggle with, as do most people. I think, like you
2:23
Speaker 1: struggle with the topic, or you struggle with willpower. I
2:25
Speaker 1: think everybody struggles with willpower. Oh yeah, well, as a
2:28
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Um, I think you're absolutely right. There
2:31
Speaker 1: is a very famous guy named Plato, famous Greek philosopher Plato. Plato. Plato, yes,
2:38
Speaker 1: not Plato, right, um. And Plato decided well suggested that
2:43
Speaker 1: the entire human experience, that the sum of human existence
2:51
Speaker 1: could be basically nailed down with just this. You have
2:57
Speaker 1: a higher self and a lower self. Yeah, and your
3:01
Speaker 1: purpose for living is to overcome the usually more powerful
3:07
Speaker 1: urges of the lower self in order to fulfill the
3:11
Speaker 1: goals of the higher self. I am down without it
3:15
Speaker 1: makes uttering complete sense. I don't know about the reason
3:17
Speaker 1: for living, but the struggle man struggle or at least okay, yeah, yeah,
3:22
Speaker 1: like that's if you're born. You're going to face that. Yeah,
3:25
Speaker 1: but you're going to face it in varying degrees because,
3:28
Speaker 1: as we found, willpower, which is what you use to
3:31
Speaker 1: get over your lower urges and pursue your higher goals. Um,
3:37
Speaker 1: it comes in differing amounts for differing people, different people. Yeah,
3:41
Speaker 1: and it and Robert Lamb wrote the original article from
3:44
Speaker 1: House Touff works from stuff to blow your mind. And
3:46
Speaker 1: he points out that we're at odds with our own
3:50
Speaker 1: uh nature, as we have evolved here on the planet
3:53
Speaker 1: because you know, we craved sugary sweet things because sugar
3:58
Speaker 1: gave us lots of energy back in the day, and
4:01
Speaker 1: back in the day they didn't have little debby cakes
4:04
Speaker 1: within hands reach at all times. So we're sort of
4:07
Speaker 1: at odds with ourselves. And he points out sexually as well, Um,
4:11
Speaker 1: we evolved to spread the seed and procreate as much
4:14
Speaker 1: as possible to ensure the survival of the species. And um,
4:19
Speaker 1: nowadays you can't really do that stuff, or if you do,
4:22
Speaker 1: you're a flander or a jerk or your spreading disease
4:27
Speaker 1: and your public health nuisance. Yeah. So um, we're at
4:30
Speaker 1: odds with ourselves, with our very existence. Yeah, and not
4:33
Speaker 1: only internally, but you make the point um as a
4:36
Speaker 1: society as well, I mean, society and evolution tussle. So
4:40
Speaker 1: you can make the case that society represents our higher
4:42
Speaker 1: self and you know, are what we are, basic instincts
4:46
Speaker 1: that we've evolved to are our lower selves. So that's
4:50
Speaker 1: what's going on, and it's will power, will power that
4:53
Speaker 1: will get us over the bumps that come along in
4:58
Speaker 1: life inevitably. Yeah, and it's I think most people relate
5:01
Speaker 1: will power to things like eating or going to the gym,
5:04
Speaker 1: or indulging in uh uh, sexual proclivities and things like that.
5:10
Speaker 1: But I think it's broader than that. In general. I
5:13
Speaker 1: think it's the will to, like Plato said, to strive to,
5:17
Speaker 1: I guess, do the right thing. Yeah, by yourself, by others,
5:21
Speaker 1: by society at large. Right. And I guess also, um,
5:24
Speaker 1: how often you come up against that? How often you
5:27
Speaker 1: have to exercise willpower because you you just hit it
5:31
Speaker 1: on the head. Will power is the act of making
5:33
Speaker 1: a decision. You're deciding to do something or not to
5:37
Speaker 1: do something. Um, how often you do that? It does
5:40
Speaker 1: depend on how you define the world around you. Yeah, Like,
5:44
Speaker 1: are these things you know? Are you surrounded by temptations
5:47
Speaker 1: that you have to ward off all the time and
5:49
Speaker 1: you're paying attention to it and they're always closing in? Uh?
5:52
Speaker 1: If you like that, then you're going to exercise your
5:55
Speaker 1: willpower a lot. If you don't see the world as temptations,
5:59
Speaker 1: you give into them all the time, you're not going
6:01
Speaker 1: to If you look at the world is something that
6:03
Speaker 1: you can handle, You're probably not gonna have to exercise
6:06
Speaker 1: your willpower too much then either. But it's all they're all.
6:09
Speaker 1: Those are three different ways of of living and they
6:12
Speaker 1: all are I guess described by willpower and how you
6:16
Speaker 1: use it. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. Robert h
6:21
Speaker 1: makes a point that has backed up somewhat by science,
6:24
Speaker 1: actually completely by science. The and he he puts in
6:28
Speaker 1: terms of a video game, which makes sense that if
6:30
Speaker 1: you were a video game and you have a willpower meter,
6:34
Speaker 1: that that willpower meter is replenished and depleted on a daily,
6:40
Speaker 1: probably hourly basis. And the more you uh use your
6:44
Speaker 1: willpower and say, you know what, I'm not going to
6:46
Speaker 1: have that little debby cake, your little willpower meter goes
6:49
Speaker 1: down and it depletes itself, so you're not going to
6:53
Speaker 1: have as much willpower maybe for the next decision. Right.
6:57
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. Yeah, that's um pretty new. Our understanding
7:01
Speaker 1: of willpower like that is very new. The first guy
7:04
Speaker 1: to really kind of put it out like that was
7:05
Speaker 1: freud Um, and he basically said, uh, you we have
7:11
Speaker 1: this thing called willpower. We have an ego. That's that's
7:15
Speaker 1: what the Freudians associate with willpowers, the ego and your
7:20
Speaker 1: ego is this finite thing. It has a finite energy reserve.
7:24
Speaker 1: It uses energy, and therefore it can be sapped. And
7:26
Speaker 1: then Freud fell out of fashion, and um, everybody just
7:30
Speaker 1: kind of stopped looking at willpower that way. And uh,
7:33
Speaker 1: it wasn't until when a Florida State University psychologist named
7:38
Speaker 1: Roy uh Baumeister. He uh, he figured out through this
7:44
Speaker 1: test using chocolate and randishes, I believe that, um, you,
7:50
Speaker 1: if you are staving off temptation using willpower, you actually
7:55
Speaker 1: do terribly on like another test of willpower. Yeah, they
8:00
Speaker 1: used persistence tests, um, basically puzzles that you have to
8:05
Speaker 1: just keep at it and keep at It's not something
8:06
Speaker 1: you could complete immediately, and offered some people chocolate chip
8:11
Speaker 1: cookies and other chocolate treats of their liking, and offered
8:14
Speaker 1: other people radishes instead, which is not a fair fight, right.
8:19
Speaker 1: I mean, he really stacked the deck like maybe a radish,
8:22
Speaker 1: a shaved radish in a salad or something. But if
8:24
Speaker 1: all you're looking at is a plate of radish, then yeah,
8:27
Speaker 1: I would take the cookie. So what he found out though,
8:30
Speaker 1: was the people who ate the radishes had more trouble
8:34
Speaker 1: completing the test. I guess because I guess the ideas
8:36
Speaker 1: they're using up all their willpower to not eat the cookie,
8:39
Speaker 1: so they don't have time for the test the persistence.
8:42
Speaker 1: And there was also a another kind of follow up
8:46
Speaker 1: study a few years after that by UM the the
8:49
Speaker 1: University of Iowa professor with the greatest name of all
8:52
Speaker 1: of the faculty there, Baba shiv Um and uh Dr
8:57
Speaker 1: shiv Um had a basically tested willpower by saying, this
9:03
Speaker 1: group is going to remember a two digit number, and
9:06
Speaker 1: this group is going to remember a seven digit number,
9:09
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna test their willpower UM by tempting
9:12
Speaker 1: them with chocolate cake and uh Dr Ship found that
9:15
Speaker 1: there was the people who were using their working memory
9:19
Speaker 1: their cognitive capacity to remember the seven digit number had
9:23
Speaker 1: a harder time resisting. So it basically proves that we
9:27
Speaker 1: use our working memory to resist temptation. And I guess
9:30
Speaker 1: it's something like reminding yourself, you know, at the at
9:34
Speaker 1: the forefront of your mind not to do something, you
9:37
Speaker 1: know until the temptation past. Who knows, Yeah, maybe I
9:40
Speaker 1: had that cookie yesterday, so man, I can't eat it today.
9:43
Speaker 1: Or we use our working memory to remind ourselves of
9:46
Speaker 1: our long term goals in the face of a short
9:49
Speaker 1: term reward. Well, that's one of the big keys I think. Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: and uh, that's something Robert hits on, which is I
9:55
Speaker 1: want that cookie now, and I know bikini seasons coming up,
9:59
Speaker 1: and you see you mean a bikini. Josh, it's not pretty.
10:02
Speaker 1: I will never get that out of my memory, working memory,
10:05
Speaker 1: or other one, that bikini. And but that's sort of
10:10
Speaker 1: what we're at odds with is the short term. I
10:13
Speaker 1: think humans as a group tend to enjoy the short,
10:19
Speaker 1: short term pleasures and if you truly learn to conquer
10:23
Speaker 1: that in in uh lieu of long term gain, that's
10:26
Speaker 1: when you're like, you're winning, is Charlie Sheen would say,
10:29
Speaker 1: right exactly, although Charlie Sheen is not exactly one who's
10:32
Speaker 1: known to exercise the willpower. No, you know, that was
10:36
Speaker 1: a really odd person to tap for that. But well
10:39
Speaker 1: I think that's the opposite he was. He thought winning
10:41
Speaker 1: was the short term game. Yeah, I guess yeah. Um,
10:44
Speaker 1: and that is so dated. Yeah, people like when you
10:47
Speaker 1: guys record this, but it's been I think today might
10:50
Speaker 1: be the very day where you could get away with it.
10:53
Speaker 1: So it was perfect right the way. Um, so from
10:57
Speaker 1: all these tests like when Baumeister Um put his study
11:03
Speaker 1: ego depletion colon is the act of self a limited resource.
11:07
Speaker 1: It just basically kicked off the slew of follow up
11:10
Speaker 1: studies from Dr Shiv and others and UM. One of
11:14
Speaker 1: the things that they found was that you can kind
11:17
Speaker 1: of watch people exercise worldpower on the old Wonder machine yeah, UM.
11:23
Speaker 1: Using m r S. They put people in and had
11:26
Speaker 1: them think about, I guess a suite or a health
11:30
Speaker 1: food and decide between them. Yeah, And they found that
11:36
Speaker 1: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex lights up when you're making that decision,
11:41
Speaker 1: when you're considering it, which made sense they I think
11:43
Speaker 1: they kind of expected that, but they were also surprised
11:46
Speaker 1: to find that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex UM, which is
11:50
Speaker 1: located a little further back UM, that lit up as well.
11:55
Speaker 1: And they think that that has lit up for the
11:57
Speaker 1: people who made a good decision only thank you. And
12:00
Speaker 1: they think that that's maybe part of your that's part
12:03
Speaker 1: of the working memory where you're like, no, I can't
12:05
Speaker 1: eat that, because yes, that's tapping into that higher self
12:10
Speaker 1: goal pursuit. That's the dorso lateral prefrontal cortex, right, you
12:17
Speaker 1: did a nice job there by the ways. Uh So.
12:46
Speaker 1: The bomber also went on to say that, um, he could.
12:50
Speaker 1: He compares the willpower, your own willpower to a muscle
12:54
Speaker 1: or something like a muscle, and you can deplete it,
12:57
Speaker 1: Like you said, if you overwork your muscles, you're just
13:00
Speaker 1: going to deplete your muscles and be worn out at
13:01
Speaker 1: the end of the day. Or you can exercise that
13:05
Speaker 1: muscle in a in a healthy way and make it
13:08
Speaker 1: stronger in the long term. Um do you do this?
13:13
Speaker 1: After reading this is sord to realize that I actually
13:15
Speaker 1: kind of exercised willpower all the time. What you I
13:19
Speaker 1: think you especially do so, like, for example, I have
13:23
Speaker 1: a mail key that I used to go get the mail,
13:25
Speaker 1: right and we keep it in our car, And I
13:29
Speaker 1: had to go to the car and get the mail
13:31
Speaker 1: key and then go get the mail. And it was
13:32
Speaker 1: cold out yesterday, and then on the way back, I
13:36
Speaker 1: could have just taken the mail key inside with me
13:39
Speaker 1: and taking it back to the car, and the next
13:41
Speaker 1: time I went to the car again it was very cold.
13:43
Speaker 1: But instead I walked up a flight of stairs, put
13:46
Speaker 1: the mail key into the car, and then went back home.
13:49
Speaker 1: So you're you're you made that decision and you struggled
13:52
Speaker 1: with it, even in a minor way. Yes, I did
13:55
Speaker 1: it specifically because there was no reason whatsoever for me
13:59
Speaker 1: to do that rationally and as far as common sense,
14:02
Speaker 1: when there was no there's no purpose to it. But
14:05
Speaker 1: by doing it, I basically just exercise my willpower. It
14:08
Speaker 1: was something I didn't really want to do, but it
14:10
Speaker 1: wasn't a big deal, but it was I could like.
14:14
Speaker 1: Doing that accumulates. Yeah, I think I think you and
14:18
Speaker 1: I are really different in that way. I see you
14:20
Speaker 1: as someone who actively works that muscle a lot on
14:24
Speaker 1: a daily basis, and I don't enough. And not that
14:28
Speaker 1: I just have no willpower, but I don't give it,
14:31
Speaker 1: give decisions like that enough consideration. Does that make sense completely?
14:35
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'll just go upstairs and throw
14:37
Speaker 1: the key on the coffee table, which a sane person
14:40
Speaker 1: she kind of has that that thought. I think that
14:43
Speaker 1: puts you in the same camp. But that doesn't ensure
14:45
Speaker 1: that I'm making good decisions for my life, you know.
14:49
Speaker 1: But I mean, I don't think you're making bad ones.
14:51
Speaker 1: But it's good to self reflect, you know, Yeah, I
14:54
Speaker 1: do kind of. It's kind of fun, you know, it's
14:57
Speaker 1: like a game. Yeah, I want to you know, it's
15:00
Speaker 1: it's like how Ramrod Street can I stayd you know,
15:02
Speaker 1: That's what I'm building towards. Uh So. Another thing Robert
15:07
Speaker 1: points out from the science side of things is as
15:10
Speaker 1: far as giving into the short term in favor of
15:12
Speaker 1: the long term, is glucose plays a big part in that.
15:16
Speaker 1: And I think they found that a quick um shot
15:19
Speaker 1: of sugar I don't think a whole lot can sometimes
15:22
Speaker 1: stave off or build up that willpower reserve in the
15:25
Speaker 1: short term. Yeah, it's like, ah, you you were talking
15:28
Speaker 1: about how we have like a um willpower bar and
15:31
Speaker 1: every time we were this temptation is depleted a little
15:33
Speaker 1: more and more. They found that a shot of glucose
15:36
Speaker 1: replenishes that willpower bar. So is that in lieu of like,
15:39
Speaker 1: hey boy, I really want that cupcake, but let me
15:42
Speaker 1: have the juice box instead. That's the irony of it,
15:44
Speaker 1: is giving into that cupcake may help you exercise you
15:48
Speaker 1: wild power with other stuff later further on. Didn't that weird?
15:53
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean if you had something healthier, that
15:56
Speaker 1: would be the better choice. But the point is is
15:58
Speaker 1: like any kind of shot of gluco this has been
16:00
Speaker 1: shown to UM to to re up your your willpower.
16:04
Speaker 1: And this was very much poop pooed at first, this idea, UM,
16:07
Speaker 1: I think Baumeister. This is really great article by John
16:11
Speaker 1: Tierney in New York Times magazine. It's from UM the
16:14
Speaker 1: August before last. It's called do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?
16:17
Speaker 1: Our buddy Chad loves this proselytized this article. Remember, okay,
16:23
Speaker 1: this is the one, so I strongly recommend everybody to read.
16:26
Speaker 1: It's a good one. But UM and and it it
16:28
Speaker 1: talks about Baumeister like thinking that you know glucose has
16:32
Speaker 1: something to do with this UM and it was poop
16:34
Speaker 1: pooed at first, because everybody knows the brain uses the
16:37
Speaker 1: same amount of energy pretty much all day long. So
16:40
Speaker 1: that didn't make any sense. Like if you're if you're
16:43
Speaker 1: ego depleted and you're you're suffering from some sort of
16:45
Speaker 1: willpower fatigue, but your brain still using the same amount
16:49
Speaker 1: of energy, those two don't jibe. Again with the m
16:52
Speaker 1: r I. What they found was somebody suffering from ego
16:55
Speaker 1: depletion from willpower fatigue who took a shot of gluco
17:00
Speaker 1: or whatever UM their brains lit up in areas that
17:06
Speaker 1: had to do with exercising will power. So while your
17:08
Speaker 1: brain was using the same amount of energy, it was
17:10
Speaker 1: using them in different places when your willpower was fatigued.
17:13
Speaker 1: And that glutecast basically was like spinach to popeye for
17:17
Speaker 1: that part of your brain that's charged with exercising willpower.
17:21
Speaker 1: Isn't that? Yeah? So what do you carry on a
17:23
Speaker 1: packet sugar with you at all times? Come on still
17:27
Speaker 1: with sugar right now? Um? Also, uh, the in that
17:30
Speaker 1: same article they talk about this, uh, this kind of
17:33
Speaker 1: landmark study of an Israeli parole board, and um, they
17:39
Speaker 1: found that you if you were a parole e and
17:43
Speaker 1: you came to them after it had been a while
17:45
Speaker 1: since a break or lunch or breakfast, your chances of
17:49
Speaker 1: being paroled dropped by like fifty or sixt oh if
17:53
Speaker 1: the parole board had not had breakfast, yes or no.
17:56
Speaker 1: If they if you came to them like right after
17:59
Speaker 1: things got started after breakfast or after lunch, your chances
18:02
Speaker 1: of being paroled were like fifty to fifty greater than
18:07
Speaker 1: people who came to them for identical crimes like a
18:10
Speaker 1: couple of hours later. I'm sure that makes the criminals
18:12
Speaker 1: of the world feel pretty great. Yeah, exactly, so arbitrary.
18:15
Speaker 1: And they what they found is it's not laziness. It's
18:18
Speaker 1: not like physical fatigue, where like you can tell you're tired.
18:22
Speaker 1: What our brains do is they employ the strategy where
18:25
Speaker 1: you you are, you become risk averse, like you don't
18:29
Speaker 1: want to make a decision, so you say, you know what,
18:32
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put this off. You're gonna go back
18:34
Speaker 1: to jail. I'm not going to grant your parole because
18:35
Speaker 1: that's risky behavior to let you back out in the world.
18:38
Speaker 1: And I'm just I've made too many decisions today. But
18:41
Speaker 1: you're not thinking this. They just say parole to nine
18:43
Speaker 1: and you have no idea why. It just makes sense
18:45
Speaker 1: to you at the time. But if you had had
18:48
Speaker 1: some glucoset that same instance, you may you may be like, well, yeah,
18:53
Speaker 1: I think you're you're ready to come back out in society.
18:56
Speaker 1: That reminds me of the band Rush, Yes, that we
19:00
Speaker 1: talked about before. I remember this from when I was
19:03
Speaker 1: a teenager. You know the lyric um Man, what song
19:06
Speaker 1: is it? If you choose not to decide, you still
19:09
Speaker 1: have made a choice free will. Oh yeah, that's from
19:12
Speaker 1: that song of course. I think on the original album
19:15
Speaker 1: jacket it says if you choose not to decide, you
19:17
Speaker 1: cannot have made a choice. Is there. Yeah, my brother
19:20
Speaker 1: and I used to laugh that. I think Neil Perd
19:22
Speaker 1: actually wrote a lot of the lyrics back then that
19:24
Speaker 1: Getty Lee justlike you know, edged it out with events.
19:28
Speaker 1: But it's the complete opposite meanings. So it's interesting that
19:30
Speaker 1: at some point Rush I guess that maybe a band
19:34
Speaker 1: argument or something. I'm glad Getty Lee one, Yeah, you
19:37
Speaker 1: have made a choice. No, you cannot have made a choice.
19:39
Speaker 1: Just shut up, play drums. Your voice is weird. I
19:42
Speaker 1: remember hearing that the first time. I was like, oh man,
19:44
Speaker 1: oh yeah, blew me away? Yeah yeah, free will I
19:48
Speaker 1: can't believe I didn't remember the name. And you're like,
19:49
Speaker 1: I can't think of the name of this song, but
19:51
Speaker 1: it's about free will? Yeah? Was it Red bar Chetta?
19:56
Speaker 1: All right? Oh? I didn't really fully get the um
20:00
Speaker 1: the Stanford UH psychologist Walton and Dweck and then is Dweck.
20:07
Speaker 1: It sounds like saying direct wrong. Um. I didn't fully
20:11
Speaker 1: get that that they they said that people UH who
20:16
Speaker 1: have will fund willpower fatigue tend to slack off when
20:20
Speaker 1: they felt their resolve wavering, but then people who felt
20:23
Speaker 1: their resolve was limitless pressed on. I like that, just
20:27
Speaker 1: I don't get the point there. It seems like a
20:29
Speaker 1: no brainer. So yeah, I think I think it is.
20:32
Speaker 1: You may just be looking too deeply. It was like
20:34
Speaker 1: what I was talking about earlier at the beginning, where like,
20:37
Speaker 1: depending on how you see the world, like do you
20:39
Speaker 1: see the world is like, like you have willpower, so
20:42
Speaker 1: you can overcome any temptation. You're going to last longer
20:46
Speaker 1: on tests of will power than somebody who is like, um,
20:50
Speaker 1: I'm feeling kind of weak today, you know, and then
20:52
Speaker 1: you're just gonna give in. Okay, So it is pretty simple. Yeah,
20:55
Speaker 1: all right, I thought it was a dummy. Not only
20:56
Speaker 1: is it simple, I managed to make it more complex
20:59
Speaker 1: and talk about it at length. Uh. They do know
21:03
Speaker 1: that people, generally there is some genetic component involved, Like
21:08
Speaker 1: if your parents are super self disciplined, then you were
21:11
Speaker 1: more likely to turn out that way. I found that
21:13
Speaker 1: to be true from friends of mine whose parents were
21:16
Speaker 1: like super self discipline and their kids kind of turned
21:18
Speaker 1: out that way too. Yeah, but I wonder, and Robert
21:21
Speaker 1: makes a point in the article like is it genetic
21:24
Speaker 1: or epigenetic. Yeah, I don't know, probably both would be
21:28
Speaker 1: my guests. We just chose not to decide. We cannot
21:32
Speaker 1: have made a choice. Uh. And then the old marshmallow
21:35
Speaker 1: experiment this uh Stanford, not the prison experiment, but the
21:39
Speaker 1: marshmallow experiment from the nineteen sixties, very famous one where
21:44
Speaker 1: they placed these uh tortured these kids basically by placing
21:48
Speaker 1: a marshmallow in front of them and saying, if you
21:51
Speaker 1: hold off on eating that marshmallow in fifteen minutes, you
21:54
Speaker 1: will have too. And of course not many of the
21:56
Speaker 1: kids could hold out, but they found that the ones
21:59
Speaker 1: who did hold out of the second marshmallow went on
22:02
Speaker 1: in life to greater successes, at least if you count
22:05
Speaker 1: s a T scores as a measure of success, two
22:08
Speaker 1: points higher than the ones who chowed down on the marshmallow.
22:12
Speaker 1: And the ones who ate the marshmallow later on had
22:14
Speaker 1: struggles with relationships and stress and uh attention. Yeah, so
22:20
Speaker 1: I wonder if that has even do with like you know,
22:22
Speaker 1: O c D. I wonder as well, I wonder how
22:25
Speaker 1: much um of our modern problems are really just crises
22:28
Speaker 1: of willpower? I wonder, um. There was a follow up
22:33
Speaker 1: to that sixties experiment. There's been a bunch, but there
22:35
Speaker 1: was one in at the University of Rochester that was
22:38
Speaker 1: carried out last year that um found we are more
22:43
Speaker 1: willing to exercise willpower if we think that what we're
22:46
Speaker 1: holding out for is actually going to happen, you know. Uh,
22:49
Speaker 1: And they did that by this is hilarious. It's funny.
22:52
Speaker 1: Studies with kids are always they're so cruel and funny,
22:56
Speaker 1: I mean not the really truly cruel ones that any
22:59
Speaker 1: psychic logical study that has new kids almost invariably has
23:03
Speaker 1: some cruel aspect to it, and this one was no, uh,
23:06
Speaker 1: was no exception. Basically, Uh, they said, here's the control group,
23:11
Speaker 1: here's here's the experimental group, and the control group. We
23:16
Speaker 1: want to give you some extra art supplies. Let us
23:18
Speaker 1: go get them. And they came back with some extra
23:20
Speaker 1: art supplies. The experimental group. They said, hey, we're gonna
23:23
Speaker 1: get you some more art supplies. We'll be right back.
23:25
Speaker 1: And they came back. They're like, we don't have any
23:27
Speaker 1: more art supplies. We know you were really excited, but sorry,
23:31
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to make do with that old red pen.
23:34
Speaker 1: And then they tested them with the marshmallow experiment and
23:37
Speaker 1: found that the ones who had gotten the art supplies
23:40
Speaker 1: the promise hadn't been broken. Sure, uh, they held out
23:43
Speaker 1: longer than the ones who have been lied to. Yeah,
23:45
Speaker 1: they're like, screw that, you're not bringing me to marshmallows.
23:49
Speaker 1: I don't in this marshmallow right now. Exactly, I'm gonna
23:51
Speaker 1: kick you in the ship afterwards too, I'll show you. Yeah,
23:54
Speaker 1: that's not cruel on the level. What was that one?
23:57
Speaker 1: The one kid, remember the that we talked about that
24:01
Speaker 1: was tested on like oh, kept in a closet. No,
24:05
Speaker 1: they tested fear conditioning and extinction and the kid it
24:09
Speaker 1: was a little Albert where they like they would put
24:13
Speaker 1: a bunny in his lap and then bang the bar
24:15
Speaker 1: of metal with a hammer and scare the Jesus out
24:18
Speaker 1: of him. And it came to like fear rabbits, Like
24:21
Speaker 1: there was a search for him, right, and they eventually
24:23
Speaker 1: found him, they thought, I think, so, I don't remember
24:26
Speaker 1: I wrote a blog post that I'll have to republish
24:29
Speaker 1: or whatever because it's been a while. I don't remember.
24:31
Speaker 1: But yeah, they figured out who it was pretty much.
24:33
Speaker 1: So this isn't on that level. No, no, no, this
24:36
Speaker 1: is just marshmallows. Yes. Um. So oh, there was one
24:41
Speaker 1: other point I wanted to bring up that I thought
24:42
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting and horrible from that John Tierney article.
24:47
Speaker 1: Um where with with decision fatigue, with exercising willpower disproportionately
24:53
Speaker 1: affects the poor and they think that possibly now, uh,
24:56
Speaker 1: that poverty exists in a cycle because is if you're
25:01
Speaker 1: a poor person, you have to exercise willpower. You have
25:04
Speaker 1: to make more decisions than somebody who has more resources,
25:07
Speaker 1: more money. Like say you're walking through the grocery store. Um,
25:10
Speaker 1: you know, I want the soap and this food. If
25:13
Speaker 1: you're poor, you might have to say I want both,
25:16
Speaker 1: but I have to just buy one. I don't have
25:19
Speaker 1: enough for both. So how much is it going to be?
25:21
Speaker 1: And their willpower there there there, their resources of of
25:25
Speaker 1: willpower of decision making become fatigued a lot faster because
25:29
Speaker 1: they have to exercise it a lot more and they
25:31
Speaker 1: don't have the uh, the resources to get themselves out
25:37
Speaker 1: of poverty, to indulge or to like study or do
25:42
Speaker 1: you know, do more. That they already have the deck
25:45
Speaker 1: stecked against them resource wise, But then you throw in
25:48
Speaker 1: this this idea of willpower, possibly that's that makes it
25:53
Speaker 1: even more difficult. I never really thought about that. It's
25:57
Speaker 1: pretty interesting stuff. It makes you, It makes me, you know,
25:59
Speaker 1: you feel for him even more. Yeah, and it makes
26:02
Speaker 1: me feel bad when say, do I want the peanut
26:05
Speaker 1: butter ganosh cupcake or chocolate? You know what? Just go
26:08
Speaker 1: ahead and give me both, right, exactly, Well, you can
26:11
Speaker 1: buy both and then just take one to somebody who's
26:14
Speaker 1: struggling in the grocery store trying to figure out they're
26:16
Speaker 1: gonna buy soap for food. It's a good idea. Yeah, uh,
26:50
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Man? No, this is this is
26:52
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah. I like wildpower. It's fun. Go
26:55
Speaker 1: out and exercise it in little ways. It's fun. Or
26:57
Speaker 1: don't either that or um strap of car battery to
27:00
Speaker 1: your inner thighs. It's just fun. Uh okay. Well, if
27:05
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about willpower and made this
27:07
Speaker 1: good article by Robert Lamb, you can type in willpower
27:11
Speaker 1: in the search bar at how stuff works dot com
27:13
Speaker 1: and it will bring it up. And I said search bar.
27:15
Speaker 1: So it's time for a listener mail, yeah, Josh. Quickly,
27:19
Speaker 1: before we do that, we need to say a special
27:21
Speaker 1: thank you to a fan of ours who helped us
27:26
Speaker 1: out with our Wikipedia page. Oh nice, thank you, And
27:29
Speaker 1: he was very cool and and his name and he's
27:32
Speaker 1: been mentioned on tech stuff evidently too. Oh wow, this
27:34
Speaker 1: guy's a star and we're not gonna hold that against him.
27:38
Speaker 1: And this is how he His name is spelled A
27:40
Speaker 1: N T R I K s h yadaf y A
27:45
Speaker 1: d A B. And he says, you pronounce it won trick.
27:50
Speaker 1: The t is soft though, as in math Son tri trip.
27:56
Speaker 1: Yeah there you go, he he phonetically spelled out. He
27:59
Speaker 1: told you what it sounded like. And I still can't
28:01
Speaker 1: quite do it. So we just want to say thanks
28:03
Speaker 1: a lot for helping us with the Wikipedia page. And
28:07
Speaker 1: now a listener mail that I'm gonna call That's why
28:11
Speaker 1: sk can help you get ladies. This from Todd in
28:15
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. Guys and Jerry. I've come to the conclusion
28:18
Speaker 1: that I may owe you a big thank you. Your
28:21
Speaker 1: podcast has created the impression, whether fiction or reality, that
28:25
Speaker 1: I am somehow a guy who knows about stuff with
28:28
Speaker 1: the ladies. My new girlfriend, in fact, mentions as one
28:32
Speaker 1: of my winning traits that I'm often saying interesting things.
28:35
Speaker 1: And this really interested me, so I asked her for
28:38
Speaker 1: some examples of things that I say, and it was
28:41
Speaker 1: notable that every example that she cided was something that
28:44
Speaker 1: I learned listening to your podcast at work. So it
28:47
Speaker 1: is quite possible, Sirs, that you and your podcast made
28:50
Speaker 1: my baby fall in love with me. I'd like to
28:53
Speaker 1: shake your hands. Every single guy should listen to your
28:56
Speaker 1: podcast because it may at least get you a second date.
29:00
Speaker 1: And that is Todd from Oklahoma City, who is banking
29:04
Speaker 1: on our knowledge to woo women, and I guess he
29:08
Speaker 1: got a girlfriend of it. Good going, Todd. Good for you.
29:11
Speaker 1: We're glad we could help. Man. We're married, dude, so
29:14
Speaker 1: we we live vicariously through these emails. That's not true. Well, no,
29:20
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I'm happy for Todd. I don't
29:22
Speaker 1: mean I live vicariously and said I wish. No. No,
29:27
Speaker 1: I just mean like, that's great. I'm glad someone out
29:30
Speaker 1: there is getting a date because of this. Yeah. I
29:32
Speaker 1: love helping people find love connections. Yeah, as a matter
29:35
Speaker 1: of fact, we should do a speed dating episode. I
29:37
Speaker 1: wrote an article on it once and it's pretty neat. Yeah,
29:40
Speaker 1: my friend p J. You met p J. He uh,
29:42
Speaker 1: he just texted me yesterday and said, Hey, this girl
29:45
Speaker 1: he does a lot of online dating. He said part
29:47
Speaker 1: of her profiles that she's like a huge fan of
29:49
Speaker 1: you guys, And I said data. Yeah, well I don't
29:52
Speaker 1: know data. There you go. You're doing it all over
29:55
Speaker 1: the place. Man's right. Um, let's see if we have
29:58
Speaker 1: affected your life positive lee. Um, we want to hear
30:01
Speaker 1: about it, not negatively, just positively. You can tweet to
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