Don’t! The secret of self-control

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all#

by alextp • 17 years ago

186 69 17 years ago

robertk• 17 years ago

Another worldview changing article. I'd love to be a psychologist, but I'm not clever enough. Honestly, these guys are mind hackers. Finding unit tests for the brain.

tjic• 17 years ago

You're looking at some of the most interesting research from one of the most clever guys and then generalizing and saying "these guys are super bright".

The best folks in any field are super bright.

I'm not impressed by 95% of psychologists (but then again, I'm not impressed by 85% of coders...).

sfk• 17 years ago

If I'm not mistaken, the comment you responded to was highly sarcastic.

beza1e1• 17 years ago

For a scientific article two things were lacking: How do they define "successful"? How big is the variance/standard deviation?

silentbicycle6• 17 years ago

It's a summary of academic research for the New Yorker. If you want statistics on the results, you'll probably need to consult the research itself, not a popular summary.

sketerpot2• 17 years ago

It would be nice if they gave a link to the research itself. This goes in general for all popular science news.

teej• 17 years ago

I couldn't find Mischel's 1990 published findings anywhere online for free, but I did dig up this article which describes some of the data. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:1ZRYswNI6dIJ:www.coursew...

In the follow up they looked at several factors: Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, sensitivity to rejection, overall functioning, educational attainment, drug use, ratings of self-esteem, and more. It looks like they checked the correlation of each factor separately.

Besides experiment sample issues (which the linked document touches on) it looks the the experimenters were pretty rigorous in attaining valid results.

agbell2• 17 years ago

I wonder if any of the 'Brain Gym' genre of games train this delay gratification? lumosity.com has games targeting attention but they aren't the games mentioned in the article.

Alex3917• 17 years ago

Executive function is determined largely by the amount of self-directed play before age five. That's why electronic toys and baby videos are generally thought to be harmful.

edit: I don't know much about Brain Gym, but Pamela Paul has a whole chapter in Parenting Inc. comparing the different ECE programs, which might answer your question.

swombat• 17 years ago

Could you define "self-directed play" for those of us who aren't 100% clear on its meaning?

agbell2• 17 years ago

Answering my own question: Cognitive control, also known as executive processing and Executive function are I believe what this article is talking about.

This game claims to train this ability ( but I cannot vouch for its effectiveness) http://games.lumosity.com/brain_shift.html

biohacker42• 17 years ago

Does anyone here, like me, really appreciate Feynman's just the fact's style of writing?

Most people describe it as eerily cold, but I love it. Articles like the this one on the other hand, while excellent, bury their valuable information under a lot of fluff. And most people like that kind of writing, but I just find it annoying.

Good article, I just wish it was more direct.

electromagnetic• 17 years ago

Took a lot of self-control just to read through the damn thing!

zvikara• 17 years ago

On the other hand, I could use some more self-control to do actual work instead of reading through HN.

jamesbritt3• 17 years ago

I kept skipping ahead to get to the marshmallows.

silentbicycle6• 17 years ago

Consider the source, though. People who place a high priority on dense, "just the facts" writing are probably going to read the research directly. This is intended to introduce the research to an audience that would find it interesting, but are unlikely to already comb through academic journals of psychological research.

I find Oliver Sacks, Douglas Hofstadter, Stephen Pinker, etc. fascinating, but when I want the direct data (rather than commentary), I still go to primary sources. That's what they're for.

ilitirit2• 17 years ago

One of favourite pieces by Feynman is a critique of fields like psychology.

http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html

antiform2• 17 years ago

I really dislike it when people (especially people of a technical mindset like math/physics/CS majors) summarize the above article in the way, and use it to justify their dislike of the social sciences. It's not about the problems of methods in psychology in general, but about blindly applying methods (of any field) without understanding the motivation, underlying assumptions, or unintended consequences behind them.

Most modern psychological research is surprisingly rigorous and depend on sophisticated statistical methods. The results may not be as strong or conclusive as those of, say, chemistry, but for a discipline that has to study something as mercurial as human behavior, it is certainly a useful and worthwhile.

tc2• 17 years ago

I find that I compensate by varying my reading speed. You have to slow down to read Feynman, but you can often take the New Yorker at a few thousand words a minute.

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

a few thousand words a minute

Reading, or skimming?

sachmanb• 17 years ago

The author of this article writes more for us, people who want just the substance, on his blog: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/

He still wraps the information, but not to the extent he does for other publications and he frequently separates the substance into its own paragraphs. It's a great blog and I recommend it.

Two other cognitive biology blogs that I recommend are http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/ and http://merzenich.positscience.com/

jroes• 17 years ago

Agreed. tl;dr for me. I'm not looking for or expecting a biography given the title.

enneff• 17 years ago

"Does anyone here, like me, really appreciate Feynman's just the fact's style of writing?"

Of course! The problem with this approach is that professional writers are paid by the word, and it's easier to write fluff than come up with more ideas. This is symptomatic of the greater issue: mainstream culture's preference for quantity over quality.

jamesbritt3• 17 years ago

"And most people like that kind of writing, but I just find it annoying."

Why do you say that? Might it be that people have gotten accustomed to that style, and while they would prefer something more direct, have come to accept it as just being how magazine articles are? Or have people adapted their reading style to skim past the "color" fluff and pull out the essential details?

Do people take the time and trouble to complain to editors about these things? Are people more inclined to write to praise than to criticize?

ambulatorybird• 17 years ago

I've never had much trouble holding back -- it's pushing myself forward that's the hard part. Any tips on metacogitating my way out of that?

ibsulon• 17 years ago

Check out Mark Forster's Autofocus system -- worth a shot.

shellerik• 17 years ago

If you're not pushing yourself forward what are you doing instead? Perhaps whatever you are doing in place of pushing yourself forward is the marshmallow you need to say no to.

badger72• 17 years ago

It's the secret to avoiding procrastination too - if you can't stop mulling over all the other things floating around your head, then don't - just start. The other things will be replaced fairly quickly with what you're trying to do, and there you go - you've distracted yourself from your distractions and are now being productive :)

audionerd• 17 years ago

Radiolab summarized the study in a 15 minute segment, if you lack the self-control to read the entire article :)

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/03/09/mischel’s-marshmal...

boredguy8• 17 years ago

Of course students who 'sit still' and 'do as their told' do better in an educational system which prioritizes conformity.

The kid who decides to open the drawer to find the toys: that's the guy I want on my team. I'm more than willing to farm out grunt work to the 'successful' high delayers.

silentbicycle6• 17 years ago

You're mischaracterizing their argument. They're saying that people who are poor at resisting impulsive behavior tend to be less successful because they're more likely to get caught up in problems associated with poor impulse control. Credit card and gambling debt, drug addiction, getting in fights, etc.

It's about people who fail since they consistently choose to spend time getting wasted or playing WoW rather than studying, practicing, or other things that pay off in the long-term. This isn't about conformity, because it specifically includes people who have trouble meeting their own goals.

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

It's interesting. But (regarding parenting): "Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?"

In life, delaying gratification often pays off - but only to the extent that the provider of said gratification is competent and trustworthy. There are also times when it is genuinely better to take the money and run. Your bank, for example, has little interest in giving you a fair deal, but instead offers financial instruments with superficially attractive terms while burying numerous modifying clauses in the fine print. An employment contract from a major corporation can be similarly unfair. My first cubicle job came with an employment contract that asserted ownership of any intellectual property I produced during my term of employment.

One example that springs to mind is Shuji Nakamura, who has been a major innovator in the field of LED diodes (specifically, he's the engineer who made high-intensity blue light available on the cheap, so if you've got a Blu-ray player you should thank him). For this, his grateful employers bestowed upon a bonus of...$180. He sued and eventually ended up getting $7 million.

tophat02• 17 years ago

Isn't conformity sometimes appropriate? It seems to me that the trick is knowing when to follow the rules (including your own) and when to bend or break them.

Constantly railing against conformity sounds like a teenager attempting to be "edgy".

run4yourlives2• 17 years ago

While true, what you want is controlled initiative. You need a person that can follow direction, but can also adjust to a changing situation, or to the absence of instruction.

You'll never get that from a conformist, because (in my experience) they are too afraid of failing to start something. They spend too much time analyzing risk and not enough time acting if left to their own devices.

Conversely, someone who is too much of a risk taker spends too little time analyzing the risks of an action.

The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare.

jmatt2• 17 years ago

I agree.

Here are the choices 1) Do as you are told and get another marshmallow 2) Eat as many marshmallows as you want with no punishment. That doesn't seem to be a very hard choice. I personally like the kid that checks to make sure that no one is looking then eats the inside of the Oreo and returns it.

I'm not arguing with the results. I would imagine that on average those that do as they are told and conform do better on average. But I doubt those are the same people that make big discoveries or become successful entrepreneurs.

So what happened to the kid that split the Oreo and returned it? That seems like a much more interesting question.

pbz• 17 years ago

Why would you like his behavior? While clever, isn't the same as having an adult as an employee who looks around to make sure nobody's watching while stealing from you just enough so you won't notice? I wouldn't want somebody like that on my team.

madair• 17 years ago

There was no punishment. Delayed gratification is quite a different beast. I think this is a critical point.

jhancock• 17 years ago

I'm not so sure. The vast majority of Internet startups do not require significant creativity and exploration. Not for examples the level required to invent the transistor or the telegraph. Most startups over the last 10 years are massively grunt work. I would guess that successful recent startups are ruled by those with great amounts of self-control.

sketerpot2• 17 years ago

The most successful kids were the ones who found something to distract them from sitting still.

pseale• 17 years ago

This sounds vaguely like the test given to Paul Atreides in Dune, testing to see whether he was Human or an animal.

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

Dune is a ridiculously good book. I never understood why it's relatively obscure. Other then perhaps the fact that I tend to grit my teeth when I hear people talking (or making movies) about it with only superficial understanding.

c00p3r• 17 years ago

That was called the yoga almost 3k years ago. I mean self-control (control of the thoughts and emotions) through behavioral exercises.

aaronblohowiak• 17 years ago

Yoga is also not merely the physical practice (Hatha Yoga.) There are other distinct branches as well that focus on right action (karma yoga), the cultivation of mental discipline / devotion (raja yoga,) and the cultivation of knowledge (jnana yoga.)

silentbicycle6• 17 years ago

Yeah. Similarly, a big part of Buddhism is trying to be live mindfully, to avoid doing impulsive things that just lead to greater suffering. It's historically tended to get entangled with contemporary religious ideas as it spread throughout the world (not all Buddhists believe in reincarnation, etc.), but none of those are essential.

maheshsingh• 17 years ago

Indian Yoga is teaching us about importance of self-control also people can improve their self control through Yoga. People are getting benefited through yoga for self control from thousand of years. Whole concept of yoga is based upon self-control. This research is simply re-inventing the wheel. People who want to improve self-control should try Yoga for at-least couple of months.

TFrancis• 17 years ago

Agreed. Additionally, I found meditation was useful for increasing my self-control. Many types of yoga are focused on meditative practices but not all. I think these are just mind tricks (hacks?) and this jives with the research the article presented.

comatose_kid• 17 years ago

Really interesting. I think that most diets don't work because you're forced into thinking about what you eat (and what you're not supposed to). Perhaps the best diet involves changing your lifestyle so that you're doing things that remove your mind from thinking about eating.

defen• 17 years ago

See "A Farewell to Alms" for a really interesting discussion of the rise of low time-preference individuals in medieval England, and the role this played in fomenting the Industrial Revolution.

Short interview with the author here: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/08/10-questions-for-greg-clark...

noahlt• 17 years ago

Mischel's team found that they could teach tricks to underperforming kids, who would subsequently perform just as well as the originally patient ones.

Does anyone here have good hacker-relevant tips for self-control?

(For instance: when tackling a large problem, approach it bottom-up by starting with utility functions.)

rokhayakebe• 17 years ago

Where in the world is it May 18th?

Tichy• 17 years ago

Why newspapers are dying: because they could not adapt to the shortened attention spans of modern times and learn to write shorter articles.

It was a little bit interesting, but way, way too long...

jamesbritt3• 17 years ago

"Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it."

Ah, one of my favorite four-letter words: "Just".

You just add a second database to the system. You just write the slow parts in C. You just learn how to control your attention and thoughts.

Don’t! The secret of self-control

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