You Need More Than Willpower

It’s mid-February, around the time that most people waver in their commitment to the resolutions they’ve made for the new year. Many of these resolutions—whether it’s to spend less time looking at screens, eat more vegetables, or save money for retirement—require us to forego a behavior we want to engage in for the one we think we should engage in. In a new report, leading researchers in behavioral science propose a new framework that outlines different types of self-control strategies and emphasizes that self-control entails more than sheer willpower to be effective.

The report comes at a time when environmental pressures and societal problems are making strategies for boosting self-control more important than ever, says Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor and one of report’s authors.

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