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Willpower and the Optimal Control of Visceral Urges

Author

Listed:
  • Emre Ozdenoren

    (Department of Economics, University of Michigan)

  • Stephen Salant

    (Department of Economics, University of Michigan)

  • Dan Silverman

    (Department of Economics, University of Michigan)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:ads:wpaper:0069
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

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