Every once in a while I come upon an article which reminds us of the breakthrough psychological study in the 1970s.
Four-year-olds were invited one by one into a sterile, distraction-free, empty room except for a table and chair. On the table sat a delicious cookie. The child was told that he or she could eat the treat now, if you want, or wait until the adult came back, and then the reward would be two cookies.
About a third immediately at the cookie. Another third waited the endless 15 minutes until they were rewarded with two. The rest fell in between.
The ones with willpower distracted themselves with tactics like pretend play, singing songs, or covering their eyes.
In a similar though much larger study, over 1,000 children were tested and then tracked into adulthood to measure the effect of many factors on success. Willpower proved to be more powerful of a predictor of future wealth and health as social class, wealth of family origin, or IQ.
Whatever we can do to strengthen our self-control - our mastery over that emotion-spinning amygdala at the base of our brain using the more highly developed neocortex that separates us from all other animals - will strengthen our reward.
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