Metacognition - thinking about thinking

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How to avoid temptation - impossible without practice in Metacognition - thinking about thinking; being aware of how your own mind works.

Sex Ed : Jonah Lehrer - The Frontal Cortex: "
The point is that we've been arming our kids with the wrong mental tools. Instead of giving them statistics, we need to provide them with the cognitive tools to deal with temptation. Instead of urging them to abstain, we need to show them how to abstain. There is no secret recipe for overcoming our 'hottest' urges, like sexual desire. But you could do worse than giving kids a short lesson in metacognition. I think Walter Mischel's work with four-year olds and marshmallows is relevant here:

At the time, psychologists assumed that children's ability to wait [to delay gratification for a second marshmallow] depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? Mischel's conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill was the 'strategic allocation of attention.' Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow--the 'hot stimulus'--the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from 'Sesame Street.' Their desire wasn't defeated--it was merely forgotten. 'If you're thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you're going to eat it,' Mischel says. 'The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.'

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In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it's what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (When Odysseus had himself tied to the ship's mast, he was using some of the skills of metacognition: knowing he wouldn't be able to resist the Sirens' song, he made it impossible to give in.) Mischel's large data set from various studies allowed him to see that children with a more accurate understanding of the workings of self-control were better able to delay gratification. 'What's interesting about four-year-olds is that they're just figuring out the rules of thinking,' Mischel says. 'The kids who couldn't delay would often have the rules backwards. They would think that the best way to resist the marshmallow is to stare right at it, to keep a close eye on the goal. But that's a terrible idea. If you do that, you're going to ring the bell before I leave the room.'

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People who think they are more restrained are more likely to succumb to temptation

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Wow, I am going to visualize myself childishly succumbing to temptation, and adjusting my state of mind and my physicality to avoid falling into that fate. My temptation: web surfing! Read on...

People who think they are more restrained are more likely to succumb to temptation : Not Exactly Rocket Science:

In a series of four experiments, Loran Nordgren from Northwestern University showed that people suffer from a 'restraint bias', where they overestimate their ability to control their own impulses. Those who fall prey to this fallacy most strongly are more likely to dive into tempting situations. Smokers, for example, who are trying to quit, are more likely to put themselves in situations if they think they're invulnerable to temptation. As a result, they're more likely to relapse.

The restraint bias stems from the fact that we're generally bad at predicting the future and how we'd feel in circumstances that are different to our current ones. When we're full, we underestimate the powerful pangs of hunger. When we're cold, we can't imagine what it's really like to be sweltering. Addicts underestimate the pull of their drug-of choice when they try to quit.

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The restraint bias could also help to explain why people willingly take up activities they already know to be addictive - they simply believe that they're strong enough to resist the addiction. As a powerful example of this, one study showed that heroin users are less willing to pay for the substitute buprenorphine if they weren't currently experiencing cravings. If experienced users underestimate their urges, imagine how monumentally more difficult it would be for a naive person to do so.

This study, like many others I've reported on, speaks to the massive importance of self-awareness. Unrealistic perceptions of ourselves can wreak havoc with our decision making. Overinflated views of ourselves give us further to fall when our status is challenged. If we think we're more controlled than we are, we're more likely to lose control. If we say unrealistically positive things about ourselves, we could actually damage our self-esteem.

It's no coincidence that many addiction programs encourage people to have a more realistic sense of themselves. Alcoholic Anonymous, for example, emphasises that alcoholics should admit that they are powerless over alcohol and that they will always remain an alcoholic. Nordgren says that these recurring themes could help people to avoid "[drifting] back toward the illusory belief that they can handle their cravings."

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This also could explain why so many Conservative and Church leaders fall into "sin" with infidelity and homosexuality. Their megalomania spills into an inflated sense of self-control. By the way, this "Ed Yong" fellow seems like the kind of fellow that really annoys me - much younger than myself, much handsomer, much smarter, much more successful and accomplished. How this type of fellow can bare to live with himself, is beyond me.