ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Conquering the inner couch potato: precommitment is an effective strategy to enhance motivation for effortful actions.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- A decision-neuroscientific intervention to improve cognitive recovery after stroke.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2021Trial
- A Piece of the Neuroeconomic Puzzle: Effort-Based Decision-Making and Physical Activity-A Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The effectiveness of revocable precommitment strategies in reducing decision-making impulsivity.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- A Double Hit of Social and Economic Stress in Mice Precipitates Changes in Decision-Making Strategies.Biological psychiatry · 2024Article
- No evidence for a reciprocal relationship between daily self-control failures and addictive behavior in a longitudinal study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- The Willpower Paradox: Possible and Impossible Conceptions of Self-Control.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2023Article
- The role of anticipated emotions in self-control: linking self-control and the anticipatory ability to engage emotions associated with upcoming events.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Quantifying the subjective cost of self-control in humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Letting effort-free gratification derail us from effort-requiring goals is one reason why we fail to realize health-relevant intentions like 'exercise regularly'. We tested the effectiveness of the self-control strategy precommitment in such effort-related conflicts, using a novel laboratory choice paradigm, where participants could precommit to an effort-requiring large reward by pre-eliminating an effort-free small reward from their choice set. Our participants used precommitment frequently and effectively, such that they reached effort-requiring large rewards more often. Using computational modelling and Bayesian model comparisons, we assessed whether participants employed precommitment to avoid anticipated willpower failures (i.e. as a self-regulatory measure) or to maximize their motivation to choose the effort-requiring option (i.e. as a self-motivational measure). Observed choices and precommitment decisions were consistent with the motivation maximization hypothesis, but not the willpower hypothesis. Our findings show that offering precommitment is effective in helping individuals optimize their motivation and choice behaviour and thereby achieve effort-requiring goals, and strongly encourage application of precommitment schemes in exercise and rehabilitation interventions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications'.
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