For the most part, self-control is seen as an individual trait, a measure of personal discipline. If you lack self-control, then it’s your own fault, a character flaw built into the brain.
However, according to a new study by Michelle vanDellen, a psychologist at the University of Georgia, self-control contains a large social component; the ability to resist temptation is contagious. The paper consists of five clever studies, each of which demonstrates the influence of our peer group on our self-control decisions.
For instance, in one study 71 undergraduates watched a stranger exert self-control by choosing a carrot instead of a cookie, while others watched people eat the cookie instead of the carrot. That’s all that happened: the volunteers had no other interaction with the eaters. Nevertheless, the performance of the subjects was significantly altered on a subsequent test of self-control. People who watched the carrot-eaters had more discipline than those who watched the cookie-eaters.
Continued on The Frontal Cortex.
One Response
This paper (http://web.mit.edu/joshack/www/Ackerman_Vicarious-depletion2009.pdf) offers a counterpoint to these studies. They find that people who observe others exert self-control vicariously experience it as well and then deplete their own self-control. The authors compare self control to a muscle – you use it once, then it gets tired and you can’t use it for a while.