New Science of Willpower Study: Why Habits Are Hard to Change

My latest Psychology Today column is up:

A new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms what many confused shoppers, dieters, and investors know first-hand: when a decision is difficult, we go with the status quo or choose to do nothing.

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London created a computerized decision-making task. Participants viewed a series of visual tests that asked them to play a referee making a sports call (e.g., whether a tennis ball bounced in our out of bounds).

Before each test, participants were told that one of the responses (in or out) was the "default" for this round. They were asked to hold down a key while they watched. If they continued to hold down the key, they were choosing the default. If they lifted their finger, they were choosing the non-default. Importantly, the default response (in or out) switched randomly between rounds, so that a participant's response bias (to make a call in or out) would not be confused with their tendency to stick with the status quo.

The researchers were interested in two questions:
1) Does the difficulty of the decision influence the participants' likelihood of choosing the default?
2) Is there a neural signature for choosing the default vs. overriding the status quo?

Read the whole column on The Science of Willpower at Psychology Today.

The Problem with Dieting

Latest Science of Willpower column up on Psychology Today!

"Bad news for yo-yo dieters this week: according to a recent study, cycles of feast and famine can create fast-food junkies–at least in rodents. The researchers put rats on a cyclic diet of 5 days of standard rat chow, followed by 2 days of the equivalent of rat fast food (high fat, high sugar, highly delicious). In other words, a compressed version of most dieters' swings between self-control and indulgence....

....Another study offers hope for ending the cycle. Researchers at Laval University in Québec, Canada have been following the benefits of a unique weight control intervention for over a year. This intervention, called 'What about losing weight?' emphasized the possibility of being healthy at every size."

Read the whole thing here.

Does being in a happy relationship make you gain weight?

Interviewed for this article on whether being in a happy relationship saps willpower to lose weight/stay at a healthy weight. (personally, I'd prioritize a happy relationship over losing weight)

"Happiness Takes the Cake" Boston Globe October 15, 2009

Unfortunately, we have been trained over the years to reward ourselves with food, says Kelly McGonigal, a health educator and PhD at Stanford University. “If you celebrate your good mood with high-fat foods, recent research suggests that the brain gets tricked by the fat molecules into ignoring signals of fullness, so you keep eating,’’ McGonigal says.

Although it’s tempting, McGonigal warns me that my ticket back to Skinnyville is not making myself miserable. In fact, she explains that stress, fear, and depression are triggers for eating even more.

The Diabolic Secret Powers of Junk Food

My latest column on Psychology Today features a new study that will make you question the loyalty of your favorite comfort food:

"It seems too clever, too diabolic to be true. A recent study shows that foods high in saturated fat -- ice cream, cheese, red meat -- cause your brain to secrete chemicals that tell the body to ignore biological signals of fullness (like leptin and insulin). The result: you don't "feel" full, and you keep eating. It's as if junk food had been shaped by the forces of evolution, learning to fool humans into ever-increasing consumption. And it explains why we seem to have an endless appetite for some foods, like pizza and a pint of Ben and Jerry's."


Read more here....Enjoy!

Is your neighborhood making you fat?

I'm writing a new blog on Psychology Today called "The Science of Willpower: Secrets for Self-Control without Suffering." It will cover research on self-control, emotion regulation, stress reduction, behavior change, and health psychology--and also include practical strategies from the classes I teach on these topics at Stanford.

My first post is up!

It's about a new study showing how where you live can strengthen or sabotage your willpower.