Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength

by Roy F. Baumeister

Could all of this merely reflect a practical, if slightly unhealthy, shift in priorities? Were they sensibly saving time so that they could study more? Not quite. During exams, students reported an increase in the tendency to spend time with friends instead of studying—precisely the opposite of what would be sensible and practical. Some students even reported that their study habits got worse during exam time, which couldn’t have been their intention. They must have been devoting much of their willpower to making themselves study harder, and yet they ended up studying less. Likewise, they reported an increase in oversleeping, and in spending money impulsively. Shopping sprees made no practical sense during exam period, but the students had less discipline to restrain their spending. They were also more grumpy, irritable, and prone to anger or despair. They may have blamed their outbursts on the stress of exam period, because there’s a common misperception that stress causes those kinds of emotions. What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions.