The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

Willpower Experiments
• 
To revoke your license, remember the why.
The next time you find yourself using past
good behavior to justify indulging, pause and think about why you were “good,” not
whether you deserve a reward.
• 
A tomorrow just like today.
For your willpower challenge, aim to reduce the variability
of your behavior day to day.

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FIVE
The Brain’s Big Lie: Why We Mistake Wanting for Happiness
I
n 1953, James Olds and Peter Milner, two young scientists at McGill University in Montreal, were
trying to make sense of a very puzzling rat. The scientists had implanted an electrode deep into the
rat’s brain, through which they could send shocks. They were trying to activate an area of the brain
that other scientists had discovered would create a fear response in rats. According to previous
reports, lab rats hated the shocks so much, they would avoid anything associated with the moment of
brain stimulation. Olds and Milner’s rat, on the other hand, kept returning to the corner of the cage
where it had been shocked. It was as if their rat was hoping for another shock.
Stymied by the rat’s curious behavior, they decided to test the hypothesis that the rat wanted to be
shocked. They rewarded the rat with a mild jolt every time it moved a little bit to the right and away
from the corner. The rat quickly caught on, and in just a few minutes, it was all the way in the other
corner of the cage. Olds and Milner found that the rat would move in any direction if they rewarded it
with a shock. Pretty soon, they could operate the rat like a joystick.
Were the other researchers wrong about the effects of stimulating this area of a rat’s midbrain? Or
had they somehow ended up with a masochistic rat?
Actually, they had stumbled on an unexplored area of the brain, thanks to a bit of clumsiness during
the implanting procedure. Olds was trained as a social psychologist, not a neuroscientist, and had yet
to develop real laboratory skill. He had implanted the electrode in the wrong area. By mistake, they
had found an area of the brain that seemed to produce incredible pleasure when stimulated. What else
could explain why the rat would go anywhere to get another shock? Olds and Milner called their
discovery the pleasure center of the brain.
But Olds and Milner did not yet understand what they had tapped into. That rat wasn’t experiencing
bliss—it was experiencing desire. What neuroscientists eventually learned about that rat’s experience
provides a fascinating window into our own experience of cravings, temptation, and addiction. As we
look through that window, we’ll see that when it comes to happiness, we cannot trust our brains to
point us in the right direction. We’ll also explore how the new field of neuromarketing is using this
science to manipulate our brains and manufacture desire, and what we can do to resist.

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