The Chocolate and Radish Experiment

What was the experiment?

And, what did it mean?

Psychologist Roy Baumeister, Phd, did some  groundbreaking 1998 research on self-control.

He kept the study participants in a room with freshly baked chocolate cookies.  While some did get to indulge their sweet tooth, the subjects in the experimental condition, whose resolves were being tested, were asked to eat radishes instead. And they weren’t happy about it.

Afterward, both groups were asked to complete difficult puzzles.  Those who ate radishes made far fewer attempts and devoted less than half the time to solving the puzzles. The cookie eaters, on the other hand, had conserved their willpower.

In other words, those who had to resist the sweets and force themselves to eat pungent vegetables could no longer find the will to fully engage in another torturous task. They were already too tired.

So, Baumeister, PhD, now a researcher at Florida State University, set out to answer some questions.

And according to Baumeister, willpower is not

• a personality trait,
• a skill or
• a virtue.

Instead, it operates like a muscle. And as such, it can be strengthened—but also easily exhausted (Baumeister 2003).

This would seem to suggest that willpower is finite!

For example, after a hard day at work, we may find our resolve to exercise is weakened. Since willpower doesn’t seem to be available at that point, it acts as if it were a measureable form of mental energy that runs out as we use it, much like the gas in our car.

However, there are studies that suggest that when we see willpower as sustained by a challenge, we can power through.

There was a study at Stanford University to see whether participants believed that  willpower is

• a limited resource depleted by effort, or
• potentially unlimited and recharged by a challenge.

After dividing the students into groups by their beliefs about willpower, they then gave them two taxing mental tasks in succession.

Those who believed willpower was a limited resource only did half as well as those who saw their willpower as unlimited.

In other words whatever someone believed about willpower ended up coming true.

Taken together, these research projects show how important our attitudes are. (reminding us that mental perseverance is often a case of “mind over mind!”)

Do you think your willpower is limitless?

Or do you often need to “recharge?”

P.S. I don’t really think it was fair for them to use chocolate to do the testing. After all, chocolate is irresistible!

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