psych/willpower directory

N/A

See Also
Links
Miscellaneous

Parent

Links

“Does Depletion Have a Bright Side? Self-regulation Exertion Heightens Creative Engagement”, Ho et al 2021

2021-ho.pdf: “Does depletion have a bright side? Self-regulation exertion heightens creative engagement”⁠, Cony M. Ho, Szu-Han Joanna Lin, Russell E. Johnson (2021-11-14):

Resource-based theories posit that exerting self-control to regulate one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors depletes people’s available self-regulatory resources, leaving them depleted and less able to exert self-control in subsequent activities.

Although the detrimental effects of depletion are well-established, we challenge this prevailing view by proposing that depletion can have unexpected beneficial effects.

Across multiple studies, our current research provides evidence that depletion shifts consumers’ attention on benefits of creativity, and in turn influences their subsequent creative engagement. Specifically, we found that depletion increases consumers’ persistence in creative activity, and this beneficial effect of depletion on creative engagement is explained by their attention on benefits of creativity. Furthermore, we explore a boundary conditions of this depletion-creative engagement effect by demonstrating that the effect could be attenuated for individuals who are not open to new experiences.

[Keywords: creative engagement, creativity, depletion, ego depletion, self-regulation, explore-exploit]

See Also:

Penke et al 2007⁠, Penke & Jokela 2016⁠; What is ‘collecting’?

“Destructive Creation at Work: How Financial Distress Spurs Entrepreneurship”

“Genome-wide Association Study of Creativity Reveals Genetic Overlap With Psychiatric Disorders, Risk Tolerance, and Risky Behaviors”

“Genome-wide association study of school grades identifies a genetic overlap between language ability, psychopathology and creativity”

“A Multisite Preregistered Paradigmatic Test of the Ego-Depletion Effect”, Vohs et al 2021

2021-vohs.pdf: “A Multisite Preregistered Paradigmatic Test of the Ego-Depletion Effect”⁠, Kathleen D. Vohs, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Sophie Lohmann, Quentin F. Gronau, Anna J. Finley, Sarah E. Ainsworth et al (2021-09-14; statistics / bias; backlinks):

We conducted a preregistered multilaboratory project (k = 36; n = 3,531) to assess the size and robustness of ego-depletion effects using a novel replication method, termed the paradigmatic replication approach. Each laboratory implemented one of two procedures that was intended to manipulate self-control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of self-control. Confirmatory tests found a nonsignificant result (d = 0.06). Confirmatory Bayesian meta-analyses using an informed-prior hypothesis (δ = 0.30, SD = 0.15) found that the data were 4× more likely under the null than the alternative hypothesis. Hence, preregistered analyses did not find evidence for a depletion effect. Exploratory analyses on the full sample (ie. ignoring exclusion criteria) found a statistically-significant effect (d = 0.08); Bayesian analyses showed that the data were about equally likely under the null and informed-prior hypotheses. Exploratory moderator tests suggested that the depletion effect was larger for participants who reported more fatigue but was not moderated by trait self-control, willpower beliefs, or action orientation.

“Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression From an Evolutionary Perspective”, Hollon et al 2021

“Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression From an Evolutionary Perspective”⁠, Steven D. Hollon, Paul W. Andrews, J. Anderson Thomson Jr. (2021-07-05; SCZ; backlinks; similar):

Evolutionary medicine attempts to solve a problem with which traditional medicine has struggled historically; how do we distinguish between diseased states and “healthy” responses to disease states?

Fever and diarrhea represent classic examples of evolved adaptations that increase the likelihood of survival in response to the presence of pathogens in the body. Whereas, the severe mental disorders like psychotic mania or the schizophrenias may involve true “disease” states best treated pharmacologically, most non-psychotic “disorders” that revolve around negative affects like depression or anxiety are likely adaptations that evolved to serve a function that increased inclusive fitness in our ancestral past.

What this likely means is that the proximal mechanisms underlying the non-psychotic “disorders” are “species typical” and neither diseases nor disorders. Rather, they are coordinated “whole body” responses that prepare the individual to respond in a maximally functional fashion to the variety of different challenges that our ancestors faced.

A case can be made that depression evolved to facilitate a deliberate cognitive style (rumination) in response to complex (often social) problems. What this further suggests is that those interventions that best facilitate the functions that those adaptations evolved to serve (such as rumination) are likely to be preferred over those like medications that simply anesthetize the distress.

We consider the mechanisms that evolved to generate depression and the processes utilized in cognitive behavior therapy to facilitate those functions from an adaptationist evolutionary perspective.

Introduction

Why Do People Have Painful Feelings?

It Is All About the Squids and the Sea Bass

What Is the Evidence that Melancholia Is an Adaptation?

What Is the Content of Rumination and What Is Its Function?

What Is the Relationship Between Rumination and Spontaneous Remission?

Why Do Depressed People Often Have Recurrences?

Does CBT Disrupt Rumination or Make It More Efficient?

Stigmatize Vs. Validate?

Is It Better to Treat Depression With [antidepressant medications] ADM or CBT?

Why Do Depressed People Often Have Inaccurate Beliefs?

Summary And Conclusions

“Strong Effort Manipulations Reduce Response Caution: A Preregistered Reinvention of the Ego-Depletion Paradigm”, Lin et al 2020

“Strong Effort Manipulations Reduce Response Caution: A Preregistered Reinvention of the Ego-Depletion Paradigm”⁠, Hause Lin, Blair Saunders, Malte Friese, Nathan J. Evans, Michael Inzlicht (2020):

People feel tired or depleted after exerting mental effort. But even preregistered studies often fail to find effects of exerting effort on behavioral performance in the laboratory or elucidate the underlying psychology.

We tested a new paradigm in four preregistered within-subjects studies (n = 686). An initial high-demand task reliably elicited very strong effort phenomenology compared with a low-demand task. Afterward, participants completed a Stroop task⁠. We used drift-diffusion modeling to obtain the boundary (response caution) and drift-rate (information-processing speed) parameters. Bayesian analyses indicated that the high-demand manipulation reduced boundary but not drift rate. Increased effort sensations further predicted reduced boundary. However, our demand manipulation did not affect subsequent inhibition, as assessed with traditional Stroop behavioral measures and additional diffusion-model analyses for conflict tasks.

Thus, effort exertion reduced response caution rather than inhibitory control, suggesting that after exerting effort, people disengage and become uninterested in exerting further effort.

“Let There Be Variance: Individual Differences in Consecutive Self-control in a Laboratory Setting and Daily Life”, Wenzel et al 2019

2019-wenzel.pdf: “Let There Be Variance: Individual Differences in Consecutive Self-control in a Laboratory Setting and Daily Life”⁠, Mario Wenzel, Zarah Rowland, Daniela Zahn, Thomas Kubiak, Erika Carlson (2019; Conscientiousness):

The large body of research used to support ego-depletion effects is currently faced with conceptual and replication issues, leading to doubt over the extent or even existence of the ego-depletion effect. By using within-person designs in a laboratory (Study 1; 187 participants) and an ambulatory assessment study (Study 2; 125 participants), we sought to clarify this ambiguity by investigating whether prominent situational variables (such as motivation and affect) or personality traits can help elucidate when ego depletion can be observed and when not. Although only marginal ego-depletion effects were found in both studies, these effects varied considerably between individuals, indicating that some individuals experience self-control decrements after initial self-control exertion and others not. However, neither motivation nor affect nor personality traits such as trait self-control could consistently explain this variability when models were applied that controlled for variance due to targets and the depletion manipulation (Study (1) or days (Study (2) as well as for multiple testing. We discuss how the operationalization and reliability of our key measures may explain these null effects and demonstrate that alternative metrics may be required to study the consequences of the consecutive exertion of self-control. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology

“Evolution As Backstop for Reinforcement Learning”, Branwen 2018

Backstop: “Evolution as Backstop for Reinforcement Learning”⁠, Gwern Branwen (2018-12-06; neural net⁠, biology⁠, economics⁠, insight porn⁠, philosophy⁠, MARL⁠, sociology⁠, Bayes⁠, statistics / decision⁠, tech; backlinks; similar):

Markets/evolution as backstops/ground truths for reinforcement learning/optimization: on some connections between Coase’s theory of the firm/linear optimization/DRL/evolution/multicellular life/pain/Internet communities as multi-level optimization problems.

One defense of free markets notes the inability of non-market mechanisms to solve planning & optimization problems. This has difficulty with Coase’s paradox of the firm, and I note that the difficulty is increased by the fact that with improvements in computers, algorithms, and data, ever larger planning problems are solved. Expanding on some Cosma Shalizi comments, I suggest interpreting phenomenon as multi-level nested optimization paradigm: many systems can be usefully described as having two (or more) levels where a slow sample-inefficient but ground-truth ‘outer’ loss such as death, bankruptcy, or reproductive fitness, trains & constrains a fast sample-efficient but possibly misguided ‘inner’ loss which is used by learned mechanisms such as neural networks or linear programming group selection perspective. So, one reason for free-market or evolutionary or Bayesian methods in general is that while poorer at planning/optimization in the short run, they have the advantage of simplicity and operating on ground-truth values, and serve as a constraint on the more sophisticated non-market mechanisms. I illustrate by discussing corporations, multicellular life, reinforcement learning & meta-learning in AI, and pain in humans. This view suggests that are inherent balances between market/non-market mechanisms which reflect the relative advantages between a slow unbiased method and faster but potentially arbitrarily biased methods.

Asymptotics Ascendant

Optimization Obtained

Systems

Artificial Persons

Natural Persons

RL

Black Box vs White Box Optimization

Going Meta

Two-Level Meta-Learning

Man Proposes, God Disposes

“Pain Is the Only School-Teacher”

Taxonomy of Pain

Hui Neng’s Flag

Pain as Grounding

The Perpetual Peace

See Also

External Links

Appendix

Meta-Learning Paradigms

Pain prosthetics

Internet Community Design

“On Having Enough Socks”, Branwen 2017

Socks: “On Having Enough Socks”⁠, Gwern Branwen (2017-11-22; R⁠, design⁠, economics⁠, insight porn⁠, Bayes⁠, sunk cost⁠, survey⁠, tech; backlinks; similar):

Personal experience and surveys on running out of socks; discussion of socks as small example of human procrastination and irrationality, caused by lack of explicit deliberative thought where no natural triggers or habits exist.

After running out of socks one day, I reflected on how ordinary tasks get neglected. Anecdotally and in 3 online surveys, people report often not having enough socks, a problem which correlates with rarity of sock purchases and demographic variables, consistent with a neglect/procrastination interpretation: because there is no specific time or triggering factor to replenish a shrinking sock stockpile, it is easy to run out.

This reminds me of akrasia on minor tasks, ‘yak shaving’, and the nature of disaster in complex systems: lack of hard rules lets errors accumulate, without any ‘global’ understanding of the drift into disaster (or at least inefficiency). Humans on a smaller scale also ‘drift’ when they engage in System I reactive thinking & action for too long, resulting in cognitive biases⁠. An example of drift is the generalized human failure to explore/experiment adequately, resulting in overly greedy exploitative behavior of the current local optimum. Grocery shopping provides a case study: despite large gains, most people do not explore, perhaps because there is no established routine or practice involving experimentation. Fixes for these things can be seen as ensuring that System II deliberative cognition is periodically invoked to review things at a global level, such as developing a habit of maximum exploration at first purchase of a food product, or annually reviewing possessions to note problems like a lack of socks.

While socks may be small things, they may reflect big things.

Sock Surveys

Demographics

Christmas advice

Who Moved My Sock?

The Importance Of The Unimportant

‘Yak Shaving’ as a Failure Cascade

The Ur Cognitive Bias

Finding New Socks

Exploration

See Also

External Links

Appendix

Grocery shopping advice

“Toward a Rational and Mechanistic Account of Mental Effort”, Shenhav et al 2017

2017-shenhav.pdf: “Toward a Rational and Mechanistic Account of Mental Effort”⁠, Amitai Shenhav, Sebastian Musslick, Falk Lieder, Wouter Kool, Thomas L. Griffiths, Jonathan D. Cohen et al (2017-07-01; psych / writing⁠, statistics / decision; backlinks; similar):

In spite of its familiar phenomenology, the mechanistic basis for mental effort remains poorly understood. Although most researchers agree that mental effort is aversive and stems from limitations in our capacity to exercise cognitive control, it is unclear what gives rise to those limitations and why they result in an experience of control as costly. The presence of these control costs also raises further questions regarding how best to allocate mental effort to minimize those costs and maximize the attendant benefits. This review explores recent advances in computational modeling and empirical research aimed at addressing these questions at the level of psychological process and neural mechanism, examining both the limitations to mental effort exertion and how we manage those limited cognitive resources. We conclude by identifying remaining challenges for theoretical accounts of mental effort as well as possible applications of the available findings to understanding the causes of and potential solutions for apparent failures to exert the mental effort required of us.

[Keywords: motivation, cognitive control, decision making, reward, prefrontal cortex, executive function]

“An Opportunity Cost Model of Subjective Effort and Task Performance”, Kurzban et al 2013

2013-kurzban.pdf: “An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance”⁠, Robert Kurzban, Angela Duckworth, Joseph W. Kable, Justus Myers (2013-12-04; DNB⁠, nootropic⁠, psych / writing⁠, statistics / bias; backlinks):

Why does performing certain tasks cause the aversive experience of mental effort and concomitant deterioration in task performance? One explanation posits a physical resource that is depleted over time. We propose an alternative explanation that centers on mental representations of the costs and benefits associated with task performance. Specifically, certain computational mechanisms, especially those associated with executive function, can be deployed for only a limited number of simultaneous tasks at any given moment. Consequently, the deployment of these computational mechanisms carries an opportunity cost—that is, the next-best use to which these systems might be put. We argue that the phenomenology of effort can be understood as the felt output of these cost/benefit computations. In turn, the subjective experience of effort motivates reduced deployment of these computational mechanisms in the service of the present task. These opportunity cost representations, then, together with other cost/benefit calculations, determine effort expended and, everything else equal, result in performance reductions. In making our case for this position, we review alternative explanations for both the phenomenology of effort associated with these tasks and for performance reductions over time. Likewise, we review the broad range of relevant empirical results from across sub-disciplines, especially psychology and neuroscience. We hope that our proposal will help to build links among the diverse fields that have been addressing similar questions from different perspectives, and we emphasize ways in which alternative models might be empirically distinguished.

“Why Aren't We Smarter Already: Evolutionary Trade-Offs and Cognitive Enhancements”, Hills & Hertwig 2011

2011-hills.pdf: “Why Aren't We Smarter Already: Evolutionary Trade-Offs and Cognitive Enhancements”⁠, Thomas Hills, Ralph Hertwig (2011-12-05; Algernon's Law⁠, nootropic; backlinks; similar):

Pharmacological enhancers of cognition promise a bright new future for humankind: more focus, more willpower, and better memory, with applications ranging from education to military combat. Underlying such promises is a linear, more-is-better vision of cognition that makes intuitive sense. This vision is at odds, however, with our understanding of cognition’s evolutionary origins. The mind has evolved under various constraints and consequently represents a delicate balance among these constraints.

Evidence of the trade-offs that have shaped cognition include (a) inverted U-shaped performance curves commonly found in response to pharmacological interventions and (b) unintended side effects of enhancement on other traits.

Taking an evolutionary perspective, we frame the above two sets of findings in terms of within-task (exemplified by optimal-control problems) and between-task (associated with a gain/loss asymmetry) trade-offs, respectively.

With this framework, psychological science can provide much-needed guidance to enhancement development, a field that still lacks a theoretical foundation.

[Keywords: cognitive enhancements, trade-offs, constraints, evolution, side effects]

“On Finished and Unfinished Tasks [Über Das Behalten Von Erledigten Und Unerledigten Handlungen / On The Recall of Finished and Unfinished Tasks]”, Zeigarnik 1927

1927-zeigarnik.pdf: “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks [Über das Behalten von erledigten und unerledigten Handlungen / On The Recall of Finished and Unfinished Tasks]”⁠, Bluma Zeigarnik (1927):

[PsycNET summary of translated article on the Zeigarnik effect:

An intention implies not so much a predetermined opportunity for its realization as it does a need or quasi-need whose dynamic state of tension makes opportunities. Therefore it may be asked whether such a need functions only to accomplish this task or whether the state of tension also influences other aspects of the person’s behaviour.

In the present study we shall investigate the influence of such tensions upon an achievement of memory. Specifically we shall seek to answer the question: What is the relation between the status in memory of an activity which has been interrupted before it could be completed and of one which has not been interrupted? We suspect that an unsatisfied quasi-need probably does influence even purely memorial retention.

The experiments reported here were conducted with 164 individual subjects (students, teachers, children), and in addition there were 2 group experiments (47 adults, 45 children). (The complete version of this article appeared as “Über das Behalten von erledigten und unerledigten Handlungen”, Psychol. Forsch., 1927, 9, pg1–85.)]