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Comment by kmavm | Hacker News Reader

A similar study of weight-lifting would conclude that it weakens you: after all, doing some squats leads to fatigue. Frequently an activity that causes effect X in the short term leads to its opposite when repeated over long periods; see drug habituation, the effects of physical exercise, the effects of intellectual efforts, etc.

This study tells us that self-control might be a bit like a muscle, in that its use acutely makes it weaker. But do we chronically adapt to its use, and become stronger once the temporary fatigue has passed, as with so many other forms of stress? Intuitively, from my experience, we do, but it might be interesting to study. Either way, this possibility makes this study insufficient basis for advice to "use it sparingly."

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We don't gain a greater capacity for self-control, though, do we? It appears to me that what happens is that at some point, a thing that once required an exercise of self-control to resist no longer does. It is as though the weight has been lifted, not that our strength has increased.

The chronic adaptation, in other words, is habit. The process of intentionally breaking old habits and establishing new ones seems to always be particularly taxing, but maintaining an established habit, regardless of what it is, is easy. (Ignoring external factors, of course.)

With that in mind, it would be good advice to conserve the limited resource, or at least acknowledge it's variable availability and adjust your expectations of your own abilities in accordance. I'm certain there are many among the ambitious folk of HN who have taken on too many new and exciting challenges at once only to find that they turn into new and exciting chores that we can't even force ourselves to do, instead turning to the things that don't require self-control instead.

We call that procrastination and treat it like a challenge to overcome, too, but if it's a symptom of depleted self-control (and not a weak self-control "muscle"), then we'd be better served by being miserly about how we spend it than by taxing it unnecessarily. In that sense, there is a meta-adaptation in how you consciously manage your attention.

"We don't gain a greater capacity for self-control, though, do we? It appears to me that what happens is that at some point, a thing that once required an exercise of self-control to resist no longer does."

I find that I do gain ability in self-control. As you mention, the same task becomes effortless, but also, new ones become easier to confront. Practicing self-control has, for me, led to it becoming easier in general.

I'm wondering if most of that is attributable to conscious/rational factors, though, and not the ego depletion phenomenon examined in the study. How much of it is learning to recognize patterns that presage tests of will and dealing with them by some optimized heuristic that doesn't tax willpower much at all? A sense of temptation. An awareness of our position on a slippery slope. Experience.

The test would be to see how you perform with novel depleting tasks (like writing without certain letters) where no such learned heuristics might apply.

That's what I mean by a meta-adaptation. It just makes more sense to me that you can learn to manage the demands on your self-control than to boost the total supply of it. It's more like time, to me.

It may of course be some mixture of both, but I always find it interesting when people's mental models of seemingly universal experience differ.

yes, you can learn to increase your executive function. less wrong has had a few excellent threads on the subject, search for the tag "akrasia".

edit: actually, see Cayenne's post.

Weight-lifting does weaken you. Rest makes you stronger :)

"Sparingly" was not the best term for the link, but the intention was to communicate the idea that self-control is not infinitely supplied. Like any finite supply, it can be depleted; therefore, use it on things that that you find it to provide the best return on investment. (Whether or not self-control can be cultivated is not really address in the article.)

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