A New Hope
Dr. Laurie Santos speaks with Wharton's Katy Milkman about the "fresh start" effect, how temporal boundaries motivate new goals, and introduces "temptation bundling" as a strategy to make new habits, like exercise, stick.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Introduction to New Year's Resolutions and The Happiness Lab 2020
Defining Self-Control and Its Evolutionary Roots
The 'Fresh Start Effect' and Temporal Landmarks
Empirical Evidence for the Fresh Start Effect
Psychological Reasons Behind the Fresh Start Effect
Harnessing the Fresh Start Effect for Exercise Goals
Scientific Benefits of Exercise for Mood and Health
Critique of the 'Just Do It' Willpower Approach
Strategy: Removing Temptation from Your Environment
Strategy: Temptation Bundling Explained and Personal Use
Temptation Bundling Study Design and Results
Real-World Examples of Temptation Bundling
Conclusion and Embracing New Life Chapters
4 Key Concepts
Self-Control
Self-control is defined as the ability to resist temptation. It involves consciously choosing a long-term beneficial action over an immediate, often pleasurable, but less beneficial one, like resisting a muffin when you should be saving calories or exercising.
Fresh Start Effect
The fresh start effect is a phenomenon where people are more motivated to pursue goals and make positive changes at significant temporal landmarks, such as the beginning of a new year, week, or after a birthday. These moments create a psychological separation from past failures, fostering optimism and a sense of a clean slate.
Temporal Chunking
Temporal chunking refers to how our minds break up the continuous flow of time into distinct categories or 'mental accounts,' like 'the college years' or 'my 30s.' These psychological chapter breaks provide opportunities for self-reflection and a feeling of starting anew, which can boost motivation for change.
Temptation Bundling
Temptation bundling is a strategy that involves pairing a 'should' behavior (something you know is good for you but struggle to do) with a 'want' behavior (something you enjoy but might feel guilty about or is unproductive). The 'want' behavior is only allowed when you are engaging in the 'should' behavior, making the beneficial activity more appealing.
8 Questions Answered
Self-control is the ability to resist temptation, meaning you choose to forgo an immediate gratification for a long-term benefit, such as resisting a muffin to save for retirement.
Humans are often bad at resisting temptation because, evolutionarily, reacting to instant gratification was critical for survival, while long-term planning was less so. Modern environments, however, often require more long-term thinking that evolution hasn't caught up with.
People are most likely to start new habits or goals on significant temporal landmarks, such as the beginning of a new week, year, after birthdays, or certain holidays, because these feel like 'fresh starts'.
The fresh start effect is driven by two main psychological reasons: temporal chunking, which allows us to separate our past self from our present self and feel like we have a clean slate, and big picture thinking, where major life events prompt self-reflection and a desire for change.
Exercise significantly boosts mood, reducing negative states like tension, anger, depression, and fatigue, with effects lasting over 12 hours. It can be as effective as antidepressant medication for major depression and reduces anxiety symptoms, while also improving cognitive performance and physical health.
A common, ineffective approach is relying solely on willpower and telling oneself to 'just do it,' which science suggests is very difficult to sustain over time.
The most effective way to overcome temptation is to remove it from the equation entirely by structuring your environment to prevent the temptation from arising in the first place, rather than trying to fight it with willpower.
Temptation bundling is a technique where you combine an activity you should do but find difficult (like exercise) with an activity you want to do but might feel guilty about (like listening to an audio novel), allowing yourself the 'want' only during the 'should' activity, thereby making the 'should' more appealing.
6 Actionable Insights
1. Continuously Attend to Happiness
Recognize that happiness is like a ’leaky tire’ and requires constant attention and effort to ‘pump it back up,’ rather than being a state you can achieve and then forget.
2. Utilize Fresh Start Effect
Capitalize on ‘fresh start’ moments like new years, new weeks, birthdays, or specific holidays (e.g., Labor Day, Yom Kippur, Easter) to initiate new goals, as these periods naturally boost optimism and motivation.
3. Reflect at Decade Transitions
Engage in self-reflection and big-picture thinking when approaching new decades (e.g., turning 39 and about to turn 40), as this psychological transition period increases questioning of life’s meaning and motivates new, meaning-building behaviors.
4. Eliminate Environmental Temptation
Set up your environment to remove temptation entirely, such as living next door to the gym or sleeping in gym clothes, as this is the most effective way to achieve goals without relying on willpower.
5. Practice Temptation Bundling
Pair a desired but difficult activity (e.g., exercise, chores, dissertation writing) with a tempting, enjoyable activity (e.g., audio novels, favorite podcasts, scented candles, specific TV shows) by only allowing yourself to do the tempting activity while engaging in the difficult one.
6. Prioritize Regular Exercise
Engage in regular exercise, such as 20 minutes of cardio, to significantly reduce negative moods (tension, anger, depression, fatigue) for over 12 hours, decrease anxiety, improve cognitive performance, and enhance overall well-being.
6 Key Quotes
Happiness is like a leaky tire on your car. You know, your tire goes flat a little bit. You got to do something else to pump it back up.
Nick Epley
Whenever we're exercising self-control, we're resisting some temptation in our environment.
Katie Milkman
We are consummate optimists or consummate over-optimists, I should say.
Katie Milkman
The science suggests it's really hard to just do it. And so actually what research points to is that the best solutions take temptation out of the equation entirely, so you don't ever even have to have that struggle internally.
Katie Milkman
I only let myself actually indulge in audio novels... when I was exercising.
Katie Milkman
It's perfect because I would like to run the study. In fact, once upon a time when we designed the original study, I was like, we should really vary the extent to which the things people are bundling with exercise are tempting, right? Like give some people Ulysses to read and other people, you know, can read The Devil Wears Prada and and we'll see like is all bundling created equal? Like I'm pretty sure it's the things that we really feel guilty about that work best because we really don't want to do them elsewhere. But there's such a great enticement to go and do the things that are good for us.
Katie Milkman
1 Protocols
Temptation Bundling
Katie Milkman- Identify a 'want' behavior: something you enjoy but might feel guilty about, or that is unproductive (e.g., binge-watching TV, listening to audio novels).
- Identify a 'should' behavior: something beneficial you struggle to do (e.g., exercising, doing manuscript reviews, writing a dissertation).
- Pair the 'want' behavior with the 'should' behavior, allowing yourself to indulge in the 'want' only while engaging in the 'should' activity.