Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges
Abstract
Common intuition and experimental psychology suggest that the ability to self-regulate, willpower, is a depletable resource. We investigate the behavior of an agent who optimally consumes a cake (or paycheck or workload) over time and who recognizes that restraining his consumption too much would exhaust his willpower and leave him unable to manage his consumption. Unlike prior models of self-control, a model with willpower depletion can explain the increasing consumption sequences observable in high frequency data (and corresponding laboratory findings), the apparent links between unrelated self-control behaviors, and the altered economic behavior following imposition of cognitive loads. At the same time, willpower depletion provides an alternative explanation for a taste for commitment, intertemporal preference reversals, and procrastination. Accounting for willpower depletion thus provides a more unified theory of time preference. It also provides an explanation for anomalous intratemporal behaviors such as low correlations between health-related activities.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Paper provided by David K. Levine in its series Levine's Working Paper Archive with number 784828000000000034.Length:
Date of creation: 14 May 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:784828000000000034
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Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Emre Ozdenoren & Stephen W. Salant & Dan Silverman, 2012. "Willpower And The Optimal Control Of Visceral Urges," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 342-368, 04.
- Ozdenoren, Emre & Salant, Stephen & Silverman, Dan, 2010. "Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges," Discussion Papers dp-10-35, Resources For the Future.
- Emre Ozdenoren & Stephen Salant & Dan Silverman, 2006. "Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges," Economics Working Papers 0069, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science.
- Emre Ozdenoren & Stephen Salant & Dan Silverman, 2006. "Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges," NBER Working Papers 12278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- D9 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth
- J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
- I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2006-03-18 (All new papers)
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