Ever since a close friend told me, "the key is not will power, but surrender," I have pondered this counterintuitive wisdom. When moving through challenges, I have found his advice works and have wondered why. I came across some research that helps explain it.
Baumeister created an experiment to analyze self-control. Participants avoided eating for three hours before the experiment and when they arrived they were put into one of three groups.
The first group was taken into a room where chocolate chip cookies had recently been baked. This room also contained two trays: one laid out with the freshly baked cookies and other chocolate delights, and another full of radishes. This group was told they could eat as many radishes as they wanted in the next five minutes, but they weren't allowed to touch the chocolates or cookies. A second group was taken to a similar room with the same two trays, but told they could eat the cookies and/or the radishes. The third group was taken to an empty room.
The food was then removed and the individuals were given problems to solve. These problems took the form of tracing geometric shapes without re-tracing lines or lifting the pen from the paper. The problems were, sadly, unsolvable. However, the amount of time before participants gave up and the number of attempts made before they gave up were both recorded.
The results were dramatic. The group which could only eat the radishes (and had expended self control in resisting the cookies) gave up in less than half the time than the other two groups. (The no food at all group had the most long-lived persistence.) The first group also made half as many attempts at solving the problems as the other two groups before giving up. (The chocolate eaters were the group with the highest level of attempts.)
From this study, it appears that actively exercising will power is a depleting process. By surrendering and taking a decision out of the "will power" or self-control zone, it appears that more energy is retained for other decisions.
1 comment:
This study seems relevant as surrender is an approach to more efficiently use energy. However, most of us in today's world face the "eat the radishes, but don't touch the chocolates - even though they are available" temptation room. This generated the worst outcomes. The "simplicity" room, with no food options at all, did fairly well. However the "reward" room, with access to chocolate, also did fairly well (particularly on attempts). It appears that it is critical to know what "room" you are in and clarify if it is true (do I really want the chocolates?) and if so, to reassign myself in order to have better results.
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