I got married just before Christmas and as part of the madness that is preparing for the big day, I decided to go on a bit of a diet along with my wife to be. In the process I lost about a stone in a month and a half simply by not eating potatoes, bread and pasta. Brilliant I thought, especially as I felt better for it. What is interesting though, is that rather than maintain that weight and better health, I seem to have come back from the honeymoon and gauged myself back up to the weight I was before. Why? Why is it that we tend to return to bad habits, be it too much food, shopping, smoking or other?
Well, the reason we do it is because of a cognitive distortion called restraint bias. When we diet or quit smoking, we get an inflated sense of impulse control that leads us to over expose ourselves to temptation.
In a study at Northwestern University, a group of smokers were either labelled as having high or low self control. After hearing their supposed result the group were subjected to a test of will power. While watching the movie 'Coffee and Cigarettes' they were given the choice of subjecting themselves to varying levels of smoking related temptation. The higher the temptation (ie: keeping an unlit cigarette in their mouth for the duration of the film) the more money they would receive. The result? True to form, those that had been told they had more self control exposed themselves to a higher level of temptation. They also were far more likely to give in and light up.
In the words of lead author of the research Loran F. Nordgren "restraint bias offers insight in to how our erroneous beliefs about self-restraint promote impulsive behaviour"
You can read the full paper here:
Download The restraint bias - the illusion of self restraint
What does it mean for you? Well, when you have made a little progress in avoiding your indulgences and you hear that little voice in your head saying that it is okay to now expose yourself to those indulgences, back away.
A wafer thin mint anyone?
- Sam
