The Principles of Human
Struggle
How Self-Control Fails and How It Works
 Expected Utility Theory:
Expectancy × Value
 Expected Utility Theory:
Expectancy × Value
 Expected Utility Theory:
Expectancy × Value
Daniel Kahneman
 Planning Fallacy
 Planning Fallacy – Kahneman’s examples:
Estimate
 Plan to write a textbook on
decision making
 Estimates of time needed
based on available
information on resources:
 1,5 to 2,5 yrs
Reality
 Asked a colleague about
other teams who attempted
the same
 Only 40% success rate
(others abandoned the plan)
 The others took around 10
yrs
 Most teams’ resources were
better
 Planning Fallacy – Kahneman’s examples:
Estimate
 New Scottish Parliament
building – initial estimate
£40 million
 Estimates of American
homeowners of how much
kitchen remodelling would
cost: $18,658
Reality
 Finally completed for £431
million
 Real cost: $38,769
People tend to…
 Only consider best-case scenarios
 Disregard “statistics” on actual success rate of previous similar
attempts
Why?
 Because we do not consider unexpected events and random
disruptive factors, which are almost always present
 As specific information on them is unavailable, we do not pay
attention to them
People tend to…
 Rely on immediate examples that come to mind when considering a
situation / problem = AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
 Make decisions based on this immediate information
 This information is primed by context (different cues remind us of
different things)
 The cues may include attributes of the situation, of the present
alternatives, of surrounding objects, previous events, inner states,
etc.
 In addition, we seem to be “hard-wired” to pay more attention to
certain pieces of information rather than others (losses, beginnings
and endings, unique features, etc.)
What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t ache for.
(Czech proverb)
Ever heard of
subliminal
advertising
messages?
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct
effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230-244.
STEREOTYPE PRIMING
Showing participants words associated with certain concepts
can influence their behaviour
 EXPERIMENT 1: Priming rudeness made participants interrupt
the experimenter more quickly and frequently
 EXPERIMENT 2: Priming old age made participants walk more
slowly
 EXPERIMENT 3: Submilinally priming African American
stereotype made participants react with more hostility to the
experimenter’s request
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct
effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230-244.
STEREOTYPE PRIMING – problems?
 EXPERIMENT 2: Priming old age made participants walk more
slowly: “For the elderly prime version, the critical stimuli were
worried, Florida, old, lonely, grey, selfishly, careful,
sentimental, wise, stubborn, courteous, bingo, withdraw,
forgetful, retired, wrinkle, rigid, traditional, bitter,
obedient, conservative, knits, dependent, ancient, helpless,
gullible, cautious, and alone.”
Messner, C., & Brügger, A. (2015). Nazis by Kraut: A playful application of moral
self-licensing. Psychology, 6(9), 1144-1149.
 Drinking sauerkraut juice as opposed to less healthy
drinks makes people respond more positively to Naziesque
right wing ideology, which supports the idea od
moral licensing (“If I do something really beneficial though
unpleasant, I have a right to do loosen my moral standards for a
while.”)
 Is it plausible that our mind works this way?
 Most studies on behavioural/social priming have NOT been
replicated
 What is going on?
 Whether and how a prime will affect our
behaviour, attitudes and feelings depends on
what motivational value it already has to us
and what associations the prime triggers in us
based on our unique experience.
If you hate Coke, that subliminal ad won’t work on you. If you sell Coke
or work for the Coca-Cola company, it probably won’t work either.
 I. P. Pavlov
Why is this important to us (humans)?
 Salivation in Pavlov’s dogs signalizes increased
anticipation of reward = increased need
 Cues in the environment previously associated
with motivational states will become triggers of
those motivational states in the future
regardless of whether the reward/punishment is
currently present or not.
 E. L. Thorndike
Why is this important to us (humans)?
 Objects and situations can trigger automatic
behavioural responses = HABITS
 Intertwined with classical conditioning (a stimulus
triggers a motivational state as well as a
behavioural response)
 Our decisions and behaviours are dependent on
immediate (here-and-now) cues previously
associated with motivational states or general
human heuristic systems rather than global
judgment of advantages and disadvantages in
different situations
 While we are capable of making relatively more
global judgments, the quality and perceived
necessity of these judgments is ALSO
influenced by the present context
 This is because our capacity of information
processing is limited
Emotion regulation
 J. Gross
 PREVENT THOSE
PESKY LITTLE
TRIGGERS FROM
ENTERING THE
BRAIN AND
PRODUCING
AUTOMATIC
RESPONSES!!!
 How…?
Emotion regulation
 Choose sitiation
Emotion regulation
 Choose situation
 Change situation
Emotion regulation
 Choose situation
 Change situation
 Divert attention
Emotion regulation
 Choose situation
 Change situation
 Divert attention
 Change thinking
Emotion regulation
 Choose situation
 Change situation
 Divert attention
 Change thinking
 Act as if nothing
happened
Emotion regulation – EFFECTIVENESS:
 Situation selection
 Situation modification
 Attentional deployment
 Cognitive change
 Response modulation
Three groups watching a disgusting movie:
Facial expressions Physiological
reactions
Group 1: No instruction
Group 2: “Think of the
movie in way that
you’ll feel nothing.”
Group 3: “Behave in a
way so that others think
you feel nothing.”
Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent-and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent
consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 74(1), 224.
The fact that we can exercise self-control should
not be taken for granted…
 Reptilian brain – basic reflexes
 Reptilian brain – basic reflexes
 Mammalian brain – emotions
 Reptilian brain – basic reflexes
 Mammalian brain – emotions
 Human brain – reasoning, mental representation,
planning – delay of gratification
 Based on inhibition of automatic responses
blue green red yellow
 Turning our attention AWAY from what unwanted
throught/feelings/objects
 Turning our attention TOWARDS what we need to
deal with
 Switching attention back and forth when needed
 Being able to manipulate with ideas in our minds
 EXHAUSTING!
 Ego depletion
 Roy Baumeister
Three groups:
Instructed to
eat:
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
No food
Persistence on
subsequent
unsolvable
figure-drawing
task
18.9 min.
8.85 min. +
more fatigue
20.86 min.
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego
depletion: is the active self a limited resource? Journal of personality and social
psychology, 74(5), 1252-1265.
 It is a limited but renewable resource – it can
get depleted
 It is common for all types of self-control
(inhibition of automatic reactions)
 This means that if we use it up for one activity
(studying for a test) there won’t be enough for
another activity (being nice to your boss)
blue green red yellow
Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited
resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126(2), 247-259.
GOOD NEWS:
 It can be restored – rest, motivational
reinforcement, good plans/structure
 It can be used economically when necessary
 It can be trained
 OVERSTRAINING IS NOT TRAINING!!!
Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited
resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126(2), 247-259.
 Not sure which tasks are depleting in which
situation and how the mechanism works in
general
 Meta-analyses of ED research: Self-control is
probably a much more complex and diverse
phenomenon that the Ego Depletion Model
assumes = the theory oversimplifies how selfcontrol
works
 Confirmation bias („Experimenter Effect“) –
overstate evidence supporting my theory and
neglecting evidence against my theory
 Congruence bias – looking for evidence to support my
hypothesis rather than test alternative hypothesis
 Observer-expectancy effect – subconscious
manipulation of experimental situation in order to
achieve the desired effect
 Hindsight bias – modifying or creating hypotheses
after results are known, „I knew it all along“ fallacy
 Availability heuristic – only considering “here-andnow
evidence”, not the entire body of research
 Publication bias – non-significant results are seen as
unimportant, hence unpublishable
Mind the principles of inductive reasoning…
 One research study is never enough to draw
conclusions
 Hypotheses have to be formulated before
conducting new research, should be based on
previously well-established observations
 Finding plausible explanations for what already
happened is easy – this is not science!!! These
explanations have to be tested as hypotheses, and
alterantive explanations have to be tested as well
 All results (postive, negative and inconclusive) have
to be reported
 No adjustments in data or hypotheses can be made
post-hoc
 Theory has to be formulated very carefully so that
there are no logical errors or unfounded
assumptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_bi
ases
 Automatic responses have primacy over deliberate
actions
 Automatic responses are often non-conscious and
undisputed
 Automatic responses are context-dependent
 Overcoming automatic responses requires exercise
of WILL which seems to be based on limited
resources
 It is therefore best to avoid triggers of automatic
responses rather than trying to suppress the
responses
 Before attempting the second quiz, watch the
video on the “Standford marshmallow
experiment” available in the interactive
syllabus in the IS
 Recommended materials:
Roy Baumeister’s videos on ego depletion (for
research examples)
James Gross’s video on emotion regulation