The More You Wish for Self-Control, the Less of It You Have
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about a nearly mile-long trackway of fossilized human footprints is the longest ever found, a trick to keep experiences feeling fresh and new, and the more you wish for self-control, the less of It you have.
This nearly mile-long trackway of fossilized human footprints is the longest ever found by Steffie Drucker
- Wei-Haas, M.(2020, October 15). Incredible details of 10,000-year-old trek revealed in fossil footprints. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/incredible-details-of-10-000-year-old-trek-revealed-in-fossil-footprints/
- Fossil footprints tell story of prehistoric parent’s journey. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/cu-fft101420.php
- Bennett, M. R., Bustos, D., Odess, D., Urban, T. M., Lallensack, J. N., Budka, M., Santucci, V. L., Martinez, P., Wiseman, A. L. A., & Reynolds, S. C. (2020). Walking in mud: Remarkable Pleistocene human trackways from White Sands National Park (New Mexico). Quaternary Science Reviews, 249, 106610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106610
This Simple Trick Keeps All Your Favorite Experiences Feeling Fresh and New by Reuben Westmaas
- Original episode: https://www.curiositydaily.com/is-water-wet-neutron-star-weight-how-to-keep-exper/
The More You Wish for Self-Control, the Less of It You Have by Anna Todd
- Uziel, L., & Baumeister, R. F. (2017). The Self-Control Irony: Desire for Self-Control Limits Exertion of Self-Control in Demanding Settings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(5), 693–705. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217695555
- Romm, C. (2017, May). Wishing for More Self-Control Can Backfire. The Cut; The Cut. https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/wishing-for-more-self-control-can-backfire.html
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:06.8 | I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:07.8 | And I'm Natalia Reagan. |
| 0:09.3 | Happy Thanksgiving to our listeners in the United States. |
| 0:12.1 | Today you'll learn about why the more you wish for self-control, |
| 0:15.0 | the less of it you have, the longest trackway of fossilized human footprints |
| 0:20.0 | ever found, and a trick to keep familiar experiences like a holiday meal at home |
| 0:24.8 | feeling fresh and new. Let's satisfy some curiosity. The holidays are here and that's got |
| 0:32.2 | many of us wishing for self-control. |
| 0:35.0 | You know, the discipline to not eat all the pie or not buy gifts for ourselves when we're supposed |
| 0:40.2 | to be shopping for others. |
| 0:41.6 | Well, be careful what you wish for. Because depending to be |
| 0:43.0 | careful what you wish for. |
| 0:44.0 | Because depending on the task, the more you wish for self-control, |
| 0:48.0 | the less of it you may end up having. |
| 0:50.0 | In a study published in 2017, |
| 0:52.0 | researchers measured people's desire for self-control by having them rate their level of agreement with statements like, |
| 0:58.0 | I want to be able to better resist temptations. |
| 1:01.0 | Then they began working on either an easy or a difficult assignment. |
| 1:05.6 | Those who did the best on the challenging assignment were the least likely to say they'd like to be better |
| 1:10.4 | disciplined and those who did the worst were the most likely to wish for more |
| 1:14.4 | self-control. Of course, it could be that the people who ace the difficult task did so precisely |
... |
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