Self-control

This mirrors a famous observation by the psychologist Walter Mischel, now at Columbia University in New York City. In the late 1960s, Mischel offered young children a choice between eating one treat immediately, or holding off for 15 minutes and getting two. Years later, Mischel discovered that the children who had managed to wait did better at high school than those who had succumbed to temptation. As adults, those able to delay gratification were also more popular with their peers, less likely to be overweight and earned higher salaries. The second important thing about selfcontrol is that it can be improved. Roy Baumeister at Florida State University in Tallahassee likens it to a muscle that can be strengthened with exercise. His team has found that exercising self-control in one area of life will improve it in all (New Scientist, 28 January 2012, p 30). His team has also noticed that some people improve more than others, possibly because they have more self-control to start with and so are better at committing  to the exercises. “It’s a circular process, which is all the more reason why parents should give priority early in their child’s life to promoting willpower,” says Baumeister. Self-control  is also key to focused practice – which is necessary for the development of any skill – since deliberate practice is about pushing yourself to do the most difficult things, rather than just going through the motions, he says. Knowing that we can improve our willpower Practice makes perfect even for the musically gifted. Whatever the career true grit is the key (see left) and become grittier in the face of obstacles should make us more optimistic about what we are capable of. Unfortunately, we are often held back by our own beliefs about ourselves and our capacity for change. Developmental psychologists have shown that having a  fixed mindset – viewing attributes such  as intelligence and personality as set in  stone – causes people to fear failure, react badly to criticism and avoid new or difficult assignments, hardly a recipe for success.  The belief that your traits are malleable, on  the other hand, makes you more willing to stretch yourself and learn new skills. Over the last decade, a team led by Carol Dweck at Stanford University has improved the grades and attendance records of thousands of school and college students across the US simply by teaching them that intelligence isn’t fixed, that hard work can make you smarter, and that struggling to adjust to college is a normal learning process and not a sign of poor intellect. A “growth” mindset is advantageous at all stages of life, says Dweck. “It allows you to take on more challenges, and you don’t get discouraged  by setbacks or find effort undermining.” The dangers of a fixed mindset are particularly acute for members of groups about which society holds negative stereotypes, such as African-Americans or women, who may inadvertently conform  to the stereotypes. While social attitudes  are hard to change, changing mindsets  is comparatively easy. Recently, in an unpublished study, Dweck’s team helped  to improve African-American high-school leavers’ performance in college simply by encouraging a growth mindset. The research on willpower and mindset suggests that we have some influence over  the cards we are dealt at birth. However, it would be erroneous to cast this as a triumph  of nurture over nature. “There is a genetic contribution to individual differences in virtually every psychological trait you can measure, including personality traits and cognitive abilities,” says Scott Barry Kaufman, who studies intelligence and creativity at  New York University. Nonetheless, he adds,  all traits need to be developed (see below). “The environment, and life decisions on the part of the individual, are crucial in enabling that development,” he says. Ericsson argues that in most cases a person can attain expertise in any domain provided they practise long enough in the right way. But quicker learners – those with more talent – will always out-compete slower ones, says Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California, Davis. “Sure, I might be able to become a violin virtuoso if I just practised hard enough for long enough, but if it’s not until I’m 50 years old that I’m ready to audition for a second chair position in a regional orchestra, what’s the point ?