Category: Science

Recent research suggests that:

As hu­mans, we have lim­it­ed re­sources to con­trol our­selves, re­search­ers say; all acts of con­trol draw from one source. So when us­ing this re­source in one do­main, such as di­et­ing, we’re more likely to run out of it in an­oth­er do­main, like stu­dy­ing hard.

Once these re­sources run out, our self-con­trol abil­ity is di­min­ished, ac­cord­ing to sci­ent­ists.

In an experiment, the scientists:

asked par­ti­ci­pants to sup­press their emo­tions while watch­ing an up­set­ting mov­ie. The idea was to de­plete their re­sources for self-con­trol. The par­ti­ci­pants re­ported their abil­ity to sup­press their feel­ings on a scale from one to nine. Then, they com­plet­ed a Stroop task, which in­volves nam­ing the col­or of printed words (i.e. say­ing red when read­ing the word “green” writ­ten in red), yet an­oth­er task that re­quires self-con­trol.

The re­search­ers found that those who sup­pressed their emo­tions per­formed worse on the task, in­di­cat­ing that they had used up their self-con­trol re­sources while hold­ing back their tears dur­ing the film.

See full article. Scott Adams has a humorous take on this that might amuse you.

The New York Times has an interesting post on how even experts can get caught in groupthink and bad advice can become the “consensus” of experts. The reason this happens is as follows:

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

See full article. It argues that the whole “fatty food is bad for your heart” is a misconception that got the status of “consensus” because of an informational cascade.