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

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: THE POWER OF PRIDE
Put the basic human need for approval to good use by imagining how proud you will feel when
you succeed at your willpower challenge. Bring to mind someone in your tribe—a family
member, friend, coworker, teacher—whose opinion matters to you, or who would be happy for
your success. When you make a choice you’re proud of, share it with your tribe by updating your
Facebook status, Tweeting about it, or—for the Luddites among us—sharing the story in person.

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THE SHAME OF OWING BACK TAXES
If there’s time at the end of lectures, I invite my students to go public with their willpower goals. This
can create a little bit of social pressure—many people feel compelled to act on a public
announcement, especially if they know I’m going to ask them in front of the whole class how they are
doing. It also provides a form of anticipatory pride, as many students look forward to being able to
describe their success in class.
One year, when there were about 150 students in the class, a woman announced her goal to file her
back taxes. The following week, I didn’t see her, and asked the class, “Where is the woman who was
going to file her taxes?” She wasn’t there, but 
two other
people raised their hands to announce that
they had taken the first step on their late taxes. The crazy thing was, neither of them had chosen late
taxes as their willpower challenge. The woman’s announcement in the previous lecture had inspired
them—it was a classic case of goal contagion.
Now, where was the woman who had made the original pledge? I’m not sure, and because it was
our last class, I never found out. I can only hope that she was meeting with a tax attorney, and not a
casualty of shame. That, of course, is the other side of “should” power: The imagined eyes of others
can be motivating, but if we fail, their imagined scorn can discourage us from showing our face in
public again.

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