Regarding from my previous blog, “Eventually <Will-Power> Does Not deplete Even You Use A Lot”, let’s talk about “So what WillPower is?” Our issue for this time.

It is certain that self-control is highly important for ourselves. However, if you spend willpower, but you don’t consume it, what is a difference between person who does have “self-control” and who does not? It pops up to your mind.

So here is a useful article for you and let’s share! It provides theory from 2013, famous book “Mindset”, named Ph. D. Carol S. Dweck, made with her experiment that stated confronting to theory of “willpower-depletion(ego-depletion)”.

Willpower-depletion = Placebo? Theory
A researcher examined 3 patterns.
* A patients were checked their self-control level after they were exerted not to eat for a while after that, half of them got drinks with sugar and others got drinks with artificial sweetener and were evaluated their brain activity and willpower’s variables.
* Half of participants were told that “The more you use Willpower the more Willpower decreases.” And the participants got the same process with experiment 1(above).
* Basically the same with experiment 1 but the participants were not to be told whether which drinks were “sugar added” or “artificial one”.

What the researcher wanted results from those is↓
* If people is not told or they don’t know it completely from the beginning that “willpower will deplete when you use it.” and how would happen if they use it?
* If people take glucose after exertion to use their willpower then would they recover from that?

What Ph. D Dweck thought and sought was “Could the willpower depletion is just a placebo effects?” like that.

Is Willpower depletion(ego-depletion) only placebo effects?
The results hit as she expected like↓
* When people believed “willpower will deplete when I used up.” and they recovered when they took drinks with sugar.
* When people believed “willpower is not limited or not be depleted even I used up.” then no changes occurred to them whether they took drinks with sugar or not.

As the results from her experiment showed a possibility that it just only matter of placebo effect affected to willpower depletion.

It is related to the researches below, saying “Willpower recovers even when you gargle your mouth with sugar added water you may not need to take glucose to recover willpower in fact.” from 2014 article or meta-analysis from 2015, it says “It is not related between glucose level and willpower.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587

Could willpower be unlimited resource?
However, can’t say that “willpower depletion is placebo effect but it would be a cue. You just need to pin down your mind is set with “willpower is limited resource” is shackled to your motivation.

Other way around, “Willpower is unlimited resource from the beginning!”(perhaps).
If you think “I have no self-control...”, it is hopeful story for you, right?

Well, I understand that our reality, we feel our fluctuations to self-control at daily basis to be honest. I too don’t think it is not so easy to improve or be good at controlling yourself sooner even you say yourself “Willpower is unlimited resource so it doesn’t deplete easily.”
So next time let’s talk about “What is Willpower?” from another angle. Bye for now then.