It bothered me a bit too.

What also bothered me was that I'm not sure if the conclusion of the research is correct. At least, from the fact that people who were asked to memorize more, we can't deduce that willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources. The conclusion could be correct (and I confess that I haven't read the paper), but there is one other obvious reason that may be possible.

If I do physical exercise, I have an easier time allowing myself to eat some chocolate. If I work a long day, I have an easier time allowing myself to sit down and watch TV for a while. If I solve a difficult puzzle, I have an easier time allowing myself to do something fun.

I like to believe that this is not the result of my lacking willpower after cognitive processing or physical exercise, but of a moral justification that it related to the quid pro quo principle: if I do something good, I have deserved the right to do something bad.

What you described is exactly how lack of will power looks like.

You find rationalization, an argument why it is OK to do something you otherwise would prefer not to do (eat cake, avoid work-out...).

I've always had to pay attention to my weight and the difficult part is persuading yourself not to make an exception no matter how compelling the argument for it looks like (and "deserve" is one of the more difficult ones).

I see your point and you're right. Thanks for sharing :)

It assumes that cake to all participants is decadent and requires willpower. As a college student in my 20s, no amount of food was off limits and therefore I wouldn't have batted an eye at choosing the cake.

I read the results as more of "I completed a hard task therefore I feel it's appropriate choosing the greater reward."

If that were true, i don't see any reason why people would ever choose the lesser reward, since both were presented in an equal fashion. They chose fruit because they consider it the healthier alternative, not because it's a more appropriate reward. It really is the case that it's all about our finite capacity of willpower, and how we rationalize it away.

Since realizing a few years ago that willpower is finite and must be periodically recharged i've remapped the way i go about things to remove the possibility for negative choices or to make the right choice require less willpower. For example, when i commit source code the server runs a jshint syntax check and prevents my commit if there are issues. I have no choice but to make all my code pass jshint checks. Another example: recently i noticed i spent a lot of time playing a game that i considered a negative use of my time. In a single limited moment of willpower i deleted it and my savegames, so that it would cost a great deal of effort to get back to where i was. The easiest path now is not to play that game. If only i could do the same thing for my internet addiction :)

The problem I have is that 'willpower' is completely subjective and arbitrary. Exerting your willpower is not the same as me exerting mine. Also, your definition of a willpower choice might not be the same to me.

Like I said, in my 20s, food was meaningless. Calories/fat/cholesterol weren't even something I considered. I wasn't overweight due to my high metabolism, so the choice between fruit or cake would be arbitrary. It wouldn't depend on using my brain, it would depend on any number of other factors. To put it simply: if I felt like the fruit, I'd eat the fruit, otherwise cake.

You felt that playing a specific game was a waste of your time and you felt you'd have difficulty in quitting so you made it significantly hard to start again. Someone else might be able to just shut it down, leave it all installed, never go back to it, and, maybe, never even think about it again.

So, unless you know that a person has some reservations about eating cake, it's hard to say whether choosing cake over fruit is a willpower decision. There's an even worse example in the article:

Spend hours at work on a tricky design problem? You’re more likely to stop at Burger King on the drive home.

Once again, it makes the assumption that stopping off at Burger King is somehow taboo to the person and because they blew a ton of cognitive cycles their willpower is blown. And all this completely inferred by a flawed premise (or at least flawed in how it is presented to us in this blog post).

Let me give a reverse example. I chew my nails, sometimes very badly, and this can get to the point of the skin around the nail as well. It can be pretty painful. I've tried just about everything to quit, yet I've been doing this for at least early middle school. I find that if I can keep myself busy enough, either through work or non-stressful activities, I do not chew my nails (or at least it's minimized. My willpower is low when my cognitive functions are in excess - the exact opposite of what this research and accompanying blog assumes. That is one reason I find it to be somewhat questionable.

For me this isn't a lack of willpower, it's creating my own incentivization system so that I can get more accomplished. If I get more work done than usual and then reward myself, this creates a positive connection in my mind. Sometimes it is hard to stay motivated and by having a carrot teasing me on I can achieve more of my goals.

I agree, the conclusion drawn is certainly plausible, but there are other possibilities. Does the use of the brain in somewhat complex tasks deplete blood sugar, in a way which the subconscious mind realizes cake would be a more suitable remedy (fast injection of sugar and/or caffeine)? I think various trials are necessary using different "healthy"/"unhealthy" snacks would be necessary to confirm the author's conclusion. For instance, are the results the same for veggies vs. Doritos?

That said, willpower is certainly limited, and effort must be rewarded or it will become harder and harder to press on. Yes, cognitive tasks can be draining, but they can also be rewarding and invigorating, so it's not as simple as drawing from a limited willpower/cognition well.

And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with her sentiment regarding valuing users' cognitive resources, and appreciated how she expressed it. If everyone had such good intentions and proper perspective, the world would be a far better place. Thanks for sharing yourself with us Kathy.