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When you feel weak, stating core values can be a quick and easy self-control booster.
People are rightly obsessed with self-control because they intuitively understand what studies have proven: that it is associated with all sorts of positive outcomes in life, like satisfying relationships and academic achievement.
Failures of self-control, however, have been linked with addiction, overeating, interpersonal conflict and underachievement.
Self-control can be hard to maintain, as most of us know to our cost. One study has found that exercising self-control is such hard work, it measurably depletes our glucose levels (
Gailliot et al., 2007). The same study also found that having a glass of lemonade afterwards can restore us to full power.
But not everyone appreciates the calories gained from a sugary drink or wants to wait while it is digested, so what other, quicker methods are there?
Core valuesResearch on self-affirmation - thinking about your positive traits - has revealed that it can protect us from all sorts of automatic defensive responses.
Schmeichel and Vohs (2009) wondered if self-affirmation could work the same wonders in the realms of self-control. Because often what exercising self-control means is
avoiding our automatic response.
To find out participants were asked to carry out a task that required self-control: they had to write a story but without using the letters 'a' and 'n'. Participants then wrote about their core values, e.g. their relationship with their family, their creativity or their aesthetic preferences, whatever they felt was important to them.
Finally they were given a classic test of self-control: submerging their hand in a bucket of icy cold water, which, if you've ever tried it, you'll know becomes very painful after a minute or two.
This group was compared with another that was allowed to use all the letters of the alphabet when writing their story, so didn't have to exercise their self-control to the same degree (in total there were 59 people in 4 experimental conditions).
Participants who could use any letters managed to hold their hands underwater for almost 80 seconds, on average. However those who had written the stories without the 'a's and 'n's only managed 27 seconds. This shows just how dramatically our self-control can be depleted. No wonder people find it so difficult to avoid temptation.
However in the group that had to write the tricky story, then self-affirmed their core values, self-control did recover. They managed to hold their hands underwater for an average of 61 seconds. So it seems that self-affirmation can refuel depleted self-control.
Note that self-affirmation didn't improve self-control for people who completed the easy-peasy story. In other words the self-affirmation trick only works if you've already taken a hit to your self-control.
Self-control top-upIn two more experiments the researchers asked
why self-affirmation seems to have this beneficial effect on depleted self-control. Once again it came down to the idea that thinking about core values puts our minds into an abstract, high-level mode. This has been found to
increase self-control (also: how to
unconsciously increase self-control).
So, the next time you feel your self-control ebbing away at work, with your personal projects or with your partner, think about what you most pride yourself on; think about those things you hold dear, whatever they may be.
If this experiment is correct, then self-affirmation could help you discover new reserves of self-control.
It seems to me that "self-affirmed their core values" has a overlap with the practice of simple gratitude and appreciation for what we've already got. I've found that my being present to what I have is indeed similar to acknowledging my "core values," and not at all surprisingly that the practice of writing a daily Gratitude Journal takes more self-control than I often have.
The article doesn't mention or compare the usual process of people focusing on what we don't have, regretting what we have, and/or regretting have already decided about, and/or don't have.
CUTS CAN HEAL, BUT NOT BE UNDONE
A decision literally means a cut, but the human condition far too often has one ruminating on what is now beyond our control.
Reappraisal ( and sometimes appreciation ) is often needed, from the benefit of a new found broader and deeper perspective.
The article states that:
"Research on self-affirmation - thinking about your positive traits - has revealed that it can protect us from all sorts of automatic defensive responses."
NEEDED COURSE CORRECTION
Viktor Frankl reinforced these ideas using the analogy of a small plane pilot needing to make ( in advance ) course corrections for crosswind speed, to successfully arrive at one's destination. Essentially, we need to justifiably reaffirm and sometimes embellish the reality of where we are currently, in order to achieve our goals in the midst and to compensate for the vagaries of life.
We cannot change the weather, but we can control and adjust our attitude and course.
From what I've read, and seemingly at odds with the egos penchant for exaggeration, we most often understate and undervalue our skills and experience, while accentuating and overblowing fears and only possible impacts of negative outcomes.
What miracles would result, if we increasingly acted universally, from the perspective of life affirming "can do" instead of fear demeaning "can't do" ?
I heartedly agree with the results of this study, that affirming one's core values is crucial.
SELF-COMPASSION
Providing understanding and self-compassion is equally as useful for aiding one's pursuits in excelling, but is also starkly contrasted to not meeting the excessive presumptions of self-confidence ( literally and figuratively downside negative outcomes ), as one can elevate oneself with both, but competitiveness necessarily involves putting down or beating others ( most often ourselves, ignoring the presumption of there being only one winner ).
Since we live in a time where social order is inevitably ( for survival ) shifting from competitiveness to shared or cooperative approaches, we can actually learn ourselves to "be the change" ( per Mahatma Gandhi ) in this. Self-compassion provides a better and "Different Ways of Relating to Oneself" ( [Link] )
Self-compassion involves the distinction of how similar and how beneficial it is to see ourselves often much like everyone else, and grants us easier acceptance and even appreciation of our humanity and flaws as being shared and thereby not so devastating. Looking for a win/win or everyone wins solution is accurately invested in the web of existence's high degree of interdependency.
Self-compassion is about focusing upon our relationship to everyone, and that that aids building self esteem.
SELF-SURVIVAL OR RAPACIOUSNESS
Self-confidence too often involves mistakeningly accentuating and misrepresenting our supposed superiority over others, as if being more deserving of some outcome -- because one needs to be a winner, so as to NOT BE a loser. The problem is with 7 billion people, that a few thousand winners means everyone will inevitably lose. Self-confidence too often also involves suppressing and/or denying truths about ourselves that make success ( and happiness ) less likely, not more likely.
Self-confidence essentially denies and devalues our relationships ( thereby what makes us happy ), and only superficially aids the building of self esteem ( e.g. for the winners only, and often not even for them ).
SEE "An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits" ( [Link] )