Article: Why it is Impossible for Some to ‘Just Say No’

[~lostgurl~]

Why it is Impossible for Some to ‘Just Say No’

News Release
October 10, 2007
Association for Psychological Science

Drug abuse, crime and obesity are but a few of the problems our nation faces, but they all have one thing in common--people’s failure to control their behavior in the face of temptation. While the ability to control and restrain our impulses is one of the defining features of the human animal, its failure is one of the central problems of human society. So, why do we so often lack this crucial ability?

As human beings, we have limited resources to control ourselves, and all acts of control draw from this same source. Therefore, when using this resource in one domain, for example, keeping to a diet, we are more likely to run out of this resource in a different domain, like studying hard. Once these resources are exhausted, our ability to control ourselves is diminished. In this depleted state, the dieter is more likely to eat chocolate, the student to watch TV, and the politician to accept a bribe.

In a recent study, Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto Scarborough and colleague Jennifer N. Gutsell offer an account of what is happening in the brain when our vices get the better of us.

Inzlicht and Gutsell asked participants to suppress their emotions while watching an upsetting movie. The idea was to deplete their resources for self-control. The participants reported their ability to suppress their feelings on a scale from one to nine. Then, they completed a Stroop task, which involves naming the color of printed words (i.e. saying red when reading the word “green” in red font), yet another task that requires a significant amount of self-control.

The researchers found that those who suppressed their emotions performed worse on the Stroop task, indicating that they had used up their resources for self-control while holding back their tears during the film.

An EEG, performed during the Stroop task, confirmed these results. Normally, when a person deviates from their goals (in this case, wanting to read the word, not the color of the font), increased brain activity occurs in a part of the frontal lobe called the anterior cingulate cortex, which alerts the person that they are off-track. The researchers found weaker activity occurring in this brain region during the Stroop task in those who had suppressed their feelings. In other words, after engaging in one act of self-control this brain system seems to fail during the next act.

These results, which appear in the November issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, have significant implications for future interventions aiming to help people change their behavior. Most notably, it suggests that if people, even temporarily, do not realize that they have lost control, they will be unable to stop or change their behavior on their own.

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Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information.


http://www.psychologicalscience.org/...7/inzlicht.cfm

Reputation Comments on this post:

Nice find, thanks for sharing.

[sarbanes]

It can be tough to say no to something you can have access to, if your level of discipline ain't so high and refined.

[stoneinfocus]

Originally Posted by sarbanes

It can be tough to say no to something you can have access to, if your level of discipline ain't so high and refined.

This only works if the enviromenr says the same, that´s why the youth is paid for education, so they´re under control that´s why parents keep certain types of people from their children, ultimatively the family as the only goal to stay with, as prayed by the churches, so they won´t loose their influence, by making new expriences in a new enviroment.

That´s why most unwanted overdoses are applied by experienced junkies, when they´re forced to tkae the dose in an different as usual enviroment.

Live, as I understand what live is, isn´ that easy, unfortunately most people prefere safety and convenience over changes, freedome and experience.

[stoneinfocus]

These findings over surpressed feelings triggering cravings and uncontrolled drug-intake i.e. in polytoxicomaniacs, is something that I would strongly advocate, because I experienced it myself and am now able to not drink in excess etc. etc. ...

[Broshious]

What are these "limited resources to control ourselves" that they talk about?

[~lostgurl~]

^^^

Originally Posted by ~lostgurl~

An EEG, performed during the Stroop task, confirmed these results. Normally, when a person deviates from their goals (in this case, wanting to read the word, not the color of the font), increased brain activity occurs in a part of the frontal lobe called the anterior cingulate cortex, which alerts the person that they are off-track. The researchers found weaker activity occurring in this brain region during the Stroop task in those who had suppressed their feelings. In other words, after engaging in one act of self-control this brain system seems to fail during the next act.

If I understand it correctly, the anterior cingulate cortex is the part of the brain used for self control. When a person is using this part of the brain to control more than one action, it may not have the capacity to work in controlling an additional action if it is one that usually takes considerable self control.

[Broshious]

Wow, sorry, I really need to learn how to read one of these days.

[stoneinfocus]

To put it simple, when your´re busy with denying your true feelings, drug-craving will take the place of coping with your complexes, instead of using drugs to get closer to yourself, your needs and letting go and understanding your feelings, by living them, you´ll abuse drugs and feel the need to ingest them whnever you´re faced with real live situations, that would provoke feelings, that you then fight by blowing your brain away with drugs.

Or as Bruce Lee once said it: When you don´t eradicate an old failure, you will do infinitly more failures based on the one you didn´t resolve.

[Benjamin Bones]

Originally Posted by sarbanes

It can be tough to say no to something you can have access to, if your level of discipline ain't so high and refined.

True, and sometimes it can be a case of 'if I wasn't doing this, well, what would I be doing?', by this I mean there's very little going on round our way, and droogs are always there, so it can be a case of 'what gets one through the day meses one up in the medium to long term', but the day still has to be gotten through.

[stoneinfocus]

Exactly, that´s why smoker have a 74% of quitting qith Zantrex (bupropione) only while without there is a lousy 4% quitting chance.
There has top be something, always, discipline and nothing, no help indrugs and pharmacology is for zero-tolerance idiots and losers, ´cause this is just how it works otherwise we had no smokers or no heavy smokers, cause this is not about discipline it´s about how thing s´really are (pragmatism) and we fail to recognise them, cause yet we want a exact explanation of how things are working but are failing in doing so, then we simplfy our "knowledge"(more lack of) in a very primitve way, to "you just have to have discipline", while reality just shows, that´s just not working, adn so the story and suffering goes on and on as with the war on drugs, opiates prescriptions, culture-clashs, wars, politics, medicine, media....

Reputation Comments on this post:

Almost a perfect explanation, thx

[ojos_de_brujo]

Lack of discipline? Unable to cope with feelings?

Comments like that just show psychologists don't have a clue about REAL life.
Discipline has nothing to do with it.
And drug abuse IS coping behaviour. SWIY's environment can trigger what psychologists and state call 'unadapted' behaviour.
IMO this behaviour (drug abuse, eating disorders, self-harming, anything) is not unadapted at all. It is absolutely normal for any animal to avoid pain. And for humans, physical pain isn't the worst pain, emotional pain is way worse.

Swim isn't saying one should not take responsability for his/her own actions, but a society that holds people responsible for not being able to cope with extreme pain OTHERS have caused, is a twisted and sick society. Oh yeah, well... Blame the victim, why don't you?

Let's for a change at least acknowledge it when people have been done wrong, and allow them to feel pain and anger, instead of always immediately blaming them, calling them addicts or calling them crazy and destructive.
At least they have feelings, at least they are human.

Do not let anyone (even SWIYself) talk you into feeling even more guilt by believing any addiction is caused only by SWIY's lack of discipline.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well said, stating facts and adding a personal touch, understood and felt, thx

[stoneinfocus]

^^ That´s one of the best articles written here and I aggree with every very point of it!

[Fight Club]

It's kind of like that "Whack-a-Mole" game at the Carnival. When NIK has to work hard to control his drug addiction, new compulsions seem to pop up in the strangest places . . .


FC