Thinking and Deciding

SELF-CONTROL 489
Why we need self-control
It is clear from the examples just given that we take active steps to control ourselves.
In a way, the idea of self-control is a paradox. We either want the fourth bottle of
beer, or we do not. What could it possibly mean to want it but keep ourselves from
having it because four would be too much? If we keep from having it, isn’t that
because we do not really want it?
A familiar way of looking at this is to say that there are actually two people
within each of us, locked in a perpetual struggle for control of our behavior: the id
and the superego, the child and the parent, the foolish and the wise. Self-control
occurs when the superego (parent, wise) wins. Indulgence occurs when it loses.
Whatever sense such an idea may make, we do not need it to explain the phenomenon
of self-control. Ainslie (1975, 1992) has proposed an account of selfcontrol
based on the kind of dynamic inconsistency shown in Figure 19.2. The first
reward, T1 represents the temptation, such as having the fourth beer of the evening;
the second, fT2 represents some greater reward that would be received farther in
the future, such as not having a hangover the next morning. Now if you make the
choice at breakfast that morning (to the far left of the graph), notice that the utility
of the second, greater reward (not having a hangover) is higher. As you approach
the time at which the first reward (drunkenness) is available (the evening), however,
its temptation increases, enough so that its utility surpasses that of the later reward.
Therefore, if you make your choice in the morning, well before the temptation, you
will choose (relative) sobriety, but if you make it when the temptation is at hand, you
will (very likely) give in. Put another way, instead of two people, we can think of
one person’s preferences at different times. In the morning, the person will decide
against the beer; in the evening, the person will decide in favor. Knowing about the
conflict, the “morning person” will try to bind the “evening person.” Of course, they
are the same person, so what is really happening is that people try to bind themselves,
to control their own future behavior. The paradigm case is Ulysses.
Methods of self-control
Ainslie (1982, 1992) suggests four general ways in which we solve the problem of
binding ourselves.
Extrapsychic devices. One way is to remove the choice. We can throw away
the bottle of scotch, or throw away the ice cream we are trying to avoid (so that
when we want it late at night, it will not be there, and it will be too late to buy any).
Christmas Clubs fall into this category. This and other mechanisms of forced saving
help people avoid the temptation to spend money. Even some pigeons learn to peck
a key to remove temptation: Given a choice between a small immediate reward and
a large delayed reward, they choose the former, but if they are given a key that would
simply eliminate the tempting smaller reward (earlier, before the choice was made),
they often peck it (Ainslie, 1975, pp. 472–473).