Yes, I was worried it might sound like that. I know marshmallow experiment from previous HN submissions and it's quite interesting. I was just curious if there are any other interesting studies or theories that may have not been that popular but are worth knowing about. I'm certainly not trying to undermine Dr. Mischel's research.
The gist is that self-regulation appears to be a limited resource in the brain. This has many important implications, but the most relevant one is that treating it as a psychological phenomenon (resulting from certain ways of thinking or the presence or absence of certain personality traits) will only get you so far towards better utilizing it, if it gets you anywhere at all. As with time, thinking of willpower as a scarce resource that ought to be guarded carefully and spent wisely yields benefits that brooding about lack of it does not.
This will hopefully steer you away from the trap that the submission author fell into, wherein we paint over all matters of behavior or habit with layer upon layer of cognition and meta-cognition. We all love rationality and making conscious willful decisions, but as far as our brain is concerned, it’s more of a hobby than a full-time job. Whatever good goal-setting systems and positive self-image do, they evidently are not at the heart of the problem of self-control.
