ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2020
Willpower with and without effort.
Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neural basis of self-control.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Corporate Weakness of Will.Journal of business ethics : JBE · 2025Article
- Phenylketonuria as an Adherence Disease.Patient preference and adherence · 2025Review
- Free Will as Defined by the Constrained Disorder Principle: a Restricted, Mandatory, Personalized, Regulated Process for Decision-Making.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2024Review
- Running away from the marshmallow: the relevance of behaviour settings for a situated science of self-control.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Dynamics of self-control during choice and post-choice consumption quantity.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
- Behavioral construction of the future.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2023Review
- The nature and persistence of the effects of posthypnotic suggestions on food preferences: The final report of an online study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Impact of Personal Experience of COVID-19 Disease on Recreational Anglers' Attitudes and Behaviors.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Task and information conflicts in the numerical Stroop task.Psychophysiology · 2022Article
- The Achievement Motive in the Brain: BOLD Responses to Pictures of Challenging Activities Predicted by Implicit Versus Explicit Achievement Motives.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- The cognitive science of COVID-19: Acceptance, denial, and belief change.Methods (San Diego, Calif.) · 2021Article
- Effort-Optimized Intervention Model: Framework for Building and Analyzing Digital Interventions That Require Minimal Effort for Health-Related Gains.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- The skill of self-control.Synthese · 2021Article
- Effortless Willpower? The Integrative Self and Self-Determined Goal Pursuit.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- A Primer on the Role of Boredom in Self-Controlled Sports and Exercise Behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Most authors who discuss willpower assume that everyone knows what it is, but our assumptions differ to such an extent that we talk past each other. We agree that willpower is the psychological function that resists temptations - variously known as impulses, addictions, or bad habits; that it operates simultaneously with temptations, without prior commitment; and that use of it is limited by its cost, commonly called effort, as well as by the person's skill at executive functioning. However, accounts are usually not clear about how motivation functions during the application of willpower, or how motivation is related to effort. Some accounts depict willpower as the perceiving or formation of motivational contingencies that outweigh the temptation, and some depict it as a continuous use of mechanisms that interfere with re-weighing the temptation. Some others now suggest that impulse control can bypass motivation altogether, although they refer to this route as habit rather than willpower.It is argued here that willpower should be recognized as either or both of two distinct functions, which can be called resolve and suppression. Resolve is based on interpretation of a current choice as a test case for a broader set of future choices, which puts at stake more than the outcome of the current choice. Suppression is inhibiting valuation of (modulating) and/or keeping attention from (filtering) immediate alternatives to a current intention. Perception of current choices as test cases for broader outcomes may result in reliable preference for these outcomes, which is experienced as an effortless habit - a successful result of resolve, not an alternative method of self-control. Some possible brain imaging correlates are reviewed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.