1. fivefold increase S. M. Carlson, P. D. Zelazo, and S. Faja, “Executive Function,” in Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology, edited by P. D. Zelazo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 706–743.
2. “Amy” Names introduced in quotes are fictitious to protect confidentiality.
3. functioning in adolescence W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and M. L. Rodriguez, “Delay of Gratification in Children,” Science 244, no. 4907 (1989): 933–938.
4. the “master aptitude” D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: The 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bantam Books, 2005), 80–83.
5. 2006, David Brooks D. Brooks, “Marshmallows and Public Policy,” New York Times, May 7, 2006.
6. interview he conducted with President Obama W. Mischel and D. Brooks “The News from Psychological Science: A Conversation between David Brooks and Walter Mischel,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 6 (2011): 515–520.
7. The New Yorker in a 2009 J. Lehrer, “Don’t: The Secret of Self-Control,” The New Yorker, May 18, 2009.
8. influencing the curriculum in many schools See http://www.kipp.org/ and http://www.schoolsthatcan.org/ for examples.
9. International investment companies S. Benartzi with R. Lewin, Save More Tomorrow: Practical Behavioral Finance Solutions to Improve 401(k) Plans (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).
10. two closely interacting systems J. Metcalfe and W. Mischel, “A Hot/Cool System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower,” Psychological Review 106, no. 1 (1999): 3–19.
1. He wrote this summary T. C. Schelling, Choice and Consequence: Perspectives of an Errant Economist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 59.
2. seeking only immediate satisfaction L. J. Borstelmann, “Children before Psychology,” in Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol I: History, Theory, and Methods, 4th ed., edited by P. H. Mussen and W. Kessen (New York: Wiley, 1983), 3–40.
3. importance of trust W. Mischel, “Father Absence and Delay of Gratification: Cross-Cultural Comparisons,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63, no. 1 (1961): 116–124; W. Mischel and E. Staub, “Effects of Expectancy on Working and Waiting for Larger Rewards,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2, no. 5 (1965): 625–633; W. Mischel and J. Grusec, “Waiting for Rewards and Punishments: Effects of Time and Probability on Choice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5, no. 1 (1967): 24–31.
4. predict long-term consequential life outcomes W. Mischel, Personality and Assessment (New York: Wiley, 1968). M. Lewis, “Models of Development,” in Advances in Personality Science, edited by D. Cervone and W. Mischel (New York: Guilford, 2002), 153–176.
5. cognitive and social skills at school W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and P. K. Peake, “The Nature of Adolescent Competencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54, no. 4 (1988): 687–699; W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and M. L. Rodriguez, “Delay of Gratification in Children,” Science 244, no. 4907 (1989): 933–938; and Y. Shoda, W. Mischel, and P. K. Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Social Competence from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions,” Developmental Psychology 26, no. 6 (1990): 978–986.
6. earned much better SAT scores Ibid. For links between self-control and intelligence, see also A. L. Duckworth and M. E. Seligman, “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents,” Psychological Science 16, no. 12 (2005): 939–944; and T. E. Moffitt and others, “A Gradient of Childhood Self-Control Predicts Health, Wealth, and Public Safety,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 7 (2011): 2693–2698.
7. their scores was 210 points Personal communication from Phil Peake, Smith College, April 9, 2012, and as reported in D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: The 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bantam Books, 2005), 82.
8. Around age twenty-five to thirty O. Ayduk and others, “Regulating the Interpersonal Self: Strategic Self-Regulation for Coping with Rejection Sensitivity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 5 (2000): 776–792.
9. lower body mass index T. R. Schlam and others, “Preschoolers’ Delay of Gratification Predicts Their Body Mass 30 Years Later,” Journal of Pediatrics 162, no. 1 (2013): 90–93.
10. schools of the South Bronx Ayduk, “Regulating the Interpersonal Self.”
11. The brain images of these alumni B. J. Casey and others, “Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Delay of Gratification 40 Years Later,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 36 (2011): 14998–15003.
1. “hallucinatory image” S. Freud, “Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Mental Functioning” in Collected Papers, vol. 4, translated by Joane Riviere (New York: Basic Books, 1959).
2. “time binding” D. Rapaport, “Some Metapsychological Considerations Concerning Activity and Passivity,” in The Collected Papers of David Rapaport (New York: Basic Books, 1967), 530–568.
3. At this age, the children understood W. Mischel and E. B. Ebbesen, “Attention in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 16, no. 2 (1970): 329.
4. the children think some “fun thoughts” W. Mischel, E. B. Ebbesen, and A. R. Zeiss, “Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21, no. 2 (1972): 204–218.
5. slide-projected image W. Mischel and B. Moore, “Effects of Attention to Symbolically Presented Rewards on Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28, no. 2 (1973): 172–179.
6. cued to think about them as if they were real B. Moore, W. Mischel, and A. Zeiss, “Comparative Effects of the Reward Stimulus and Its Cognitive Representation in Voluntary Delay,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, no. 3 (1976): 419–424.
7. Daniel Berlyne D. Berlyne, Conflict, Arousal and Curiosity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).
8. To test this idea W. Mischel and N. Baker, “Cognitive Appraisals and Transformations in Delay Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31, no. 2 (1975): 254.
9. If they thought about fun things Mischel, Ebbesen, and Zeiss, “Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification.”
10. Give nine-year-old children compliments G. Seeman and J. C. Schwarz, “Affective State and Preference for Immediate versus Delayed Reward,” Journal of Research in Personality 7, no. 4 (1974): 384–394; see also B. S. Moore, A. Clyburn, and B. Underwood, “The Role of Affect in Delay of Gratification,” Child Development 47, no. 1 (1976): 273–276.
11. what holds for children applies to adults J. R. Gray, “A Bias toward Short-Term Thinking in Threat-Related Negative Emotional States,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 1 (1999): 65–75.
12. less likely to delay gratification when we feel sad E. H. Wertheim and J. C. Schwarz, “Depression, Guilt, and Self-Management of Pleasant and Unpleasant Events,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45, no. 4 (1983): 884–889.
13. delayed alternatives most often for crayons A. Koriat and M. Nisan. “Delay of Gratification as a Function of Exchange Values and Appetitive Values of the Rewards,” Motivation and Emotion 2, no. 4 (1978): 375–390.
14. “There is nothing either good or bad” W. Shakespeare, Hamlet: The New Variorum Edition, edited by H. H. Furness (Toronto, Ontario: General Publishing Company, 2000), Act II, Scene 2, 245–246.
15. delay gratification increased with age W. Mischel and R. Metzner, “Preference for Delayed Reward as a Function of Age, Intelligence, and Length of Delay Interval,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 64, no. 6 (1962): 425–431.
16. thoughts that would make it harder B. T. Yates and W. Mischel, “Young Children’s Preferred Attentional Strategies for Delaying Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, no. 2 (1979): 286–300; H. N. Mischel and W. Mischel, “The Development of Children’s Knowledge of Self-Control Strategies,” Child Development 54, no. 3 (1983): 603–619.
17. By age five to six Mischel and Mischel, “The Development of Children’s Knowledge of Self-Control Strategies.”
18. boys with impulsivity problems M. L. Rodriguez, W. Mischel, and Y. Shoda, “Cognitive Person Variables in the Delay of Gratification of Older Children at Risk,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 2 (1989): 358–367.
1. hot emotional system For how the hot and cool systems work, see J. Metcalfe and W. Mischel, “A Hot/Cool System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower,” Psychological Review 106, no. 1 (1999): 3–19.
2. endure the wait J. A. Gray, The Psychology of Fear and Stress, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987); J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996); J. Metcalfe and W. J. Jacobs, “A ‘Hot-System/Cool-System’ View of Memory under Stress,” PTSD Research Quarterly 7, no. 2 (1996): 1–3.
3. Freud called the id S. Freud, “Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Mental Functioning” in Collected Papers, vol. 4, translated by Joane Riviere (New York: Basic Books, 1959).
4. reciprocal relationship Although it is useful to speak and think about “two” systems, they are closely connected brain regions and their neural circuits communicate with each other and interact continuously.
5. The PFC is the most evolved region A. F. Arnsten, “Stress Signaling Pathways That Impair Prefrontal Cortex Structure and Function,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10, no. 6 (2009): 410–422.
6. Age matters H. N. Mischel and W. Mischel, “The Development of Children’s Knowledge of Self-Control Strategies,” Child Development 54, no. 3 (1983): 603–619. For recent work adapting the Marshmallow Test for use at younger ages see P. D. Zelazo and S. M. Carlson, “Hot and Cool Executive Function in Childhood and Adolescence: Development and Plasticity,” Child Development Perspectives 6, no. 4 (2012): 354–360.
7. In contrast, by age twelve O. Ayduk and others, “Regulating the Interpersonal Self: Strategic Self-Regulation for Coping with Rejection Sensitivity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 5 (2000): 776–792.
8. girls are usually rated higher A. L. Duckworth and M. E. Seligman, “Self-Discipline Gives Girls the Edge: Gender in Self-Discipline, Grades, and Achievement Test Scores,” Journal of Educational Psychology 98, no. 1 (2006): 198–208.
9. girls are generally more compliant G. Kochanska, K. C. Coy, and K. T. Murray, “The Development of Self-Regulation in the First Four Years of Life,” Child Development 72, no. 4 (2001): 1091–1111.
10. girls choose delayed rewards more Duckworth and Seligman, “Self-Discipline Gives Girls the Edge.”
11. groups studied so far I. W. Silverman, “Gender Differences in Delay of Gratification: A Meta-Analysis,” Sex Roles 49, nos. 9/10 (2003): 451–463.
12. the choice became hot A. Prencipe and P. D. Zelazo, “Development of Affective Decision Making for Self and Other Evidence for the Integration of First- and Third-Person Perspectives,” Psychological Science 16, no. 7 (2005): 501–505.
13. Stress can become harmful B. S. McEwen, “Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators: Central Role of the Brain,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 8, no. 4 (2006): 283–297.
14. neuroscientist Amy Arnsten Arnsten, “Stress Signaling Pathways,” p. 410; R. M. Sapolsky, “Why Stress Is Bad for Your Brain,” Science 273, no. 5276 (1996): 749–750.
15. The longer stress persists B. S. McEwen and P. J. Gianaros, “Stress- and Allostasis-Induced Brain Plasticity,” Annual Review of Medicine 62 (2011): 431–445.
16. Remember Hamlet W. Shakespeare, Hamlet: The New Variorum Edition, edited by H. H. Furness (Toronto: General Publishing Company, 2000).
1. the “Strange Situation” M. D. S. Ainsworth and others, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1978).
2. “Maternal control” A. Sethi and others, “The Role of Strategic Attention Deployment in Development of Self-Regulation: Predicting Preschoolers’ Delay of Gratification from Mother-Toddler Interactions,” Developmental Psychology 36, no. 6 (2000): 767.
3. These results underscore G. Kochanska, K. T. Murray, and E. T. Harlan, “Effortful Control in Early Childhood: Continuity and Change, Antecedents, and Implications for Social Development,” Developmental Psychology 36, no. 2 (2000): 220–232; N. Eisenberg and others, “Contemporaneous and Longitudinal Prediction of Children’s Social Functioning from Regulation and Emotionality,” Child Development 68, no. 4 (1997): 642–664.
4. In the infant’s first few months It is the human version of what the rat moms do when they lick and groom (LG) their pups. The rat pups who have high LG mothers perform better on cognitive tasks and display less physiological arousal to acute stress, compared with those who are stuck with low LG mothers (M. J. Meaney, “Maternal Care, Gene Expression, and the Transmission of Individual Differences in Stress Reactivity across Generations,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 24 (2001): 1161–1192).
5. infants are nurtured C. Harman, M. K. Rothbart, and M. I. Posner, “Distress and Attention Interactions in Early Infancy,” Motivation and Emotion 21, no. 1 (1997): 27–44; M. I. Posner and M. K. Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain, Human Brain Development Series (Washington, DC: APA Books, 2007).
6. infants’ stress levels L. A. Sroufe, “Attachment and Development: A Prospective, Longitudinal Study from Birth to Adulthood,” Attachment and Human Development 7, no. 4 (2005): 349–367; M. Mikulincer and P. R. Shaver, Attachment Patterns in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (New York: Guilford Press, 2007).
7. angry-sounding speech while sleeping A. M. Graham, P. A. Fisher, and J. H. Pfeifer, “What Sleeping Babies Hear: A Functional MRI Study of Interparental Conflict and Infants’ Emotion Processing,” Psychological Science 24, no. 5 (2013): 782–789.
8. how their lives unfold Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11 (2011).
9. At the neural level Posner and Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain.
10. “mind of their own” Ibid., 79.
11. follow two simple rules P. D. Zelazo, “The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS): A Method of Assessing Executive Function in Children,” Nature: Protocols 1, no. 1 (2006): 297–301.
12. underlying neural circuits Center on the Developing Child, Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System.
13. The child’s experiences P. D. Zelazo and S. M. Carlson, “Hot and Cool Executive Function in Childhood and Adolescence: Development and Plasticity,” Child Development Perspectives 6, no. 4 (2012): 354–360.
14. the intrusiveness with which she inspected, evaluated P. Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (New York: Random House, 1967).
15. “a man or a mouse?” Ibid., 16.
16. They distracted themselves strategically M. L. Rodriguez and others, “A Contextual Approach to the Development of Self-Regulatory Competencies: The Role of Maternal Unresponsivity and Toddlers’ Negative Affect in Stressful Situations,” Social Development 14, no. 1 (2005): 136–157.
17. children, aged 12 to 15 months A. Bernier, S. M. Carlson, and N. Whipple, “From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of Young Children’s Executive Functioning,” Child Development 81, no. 1 (2010): 326–339.
18. parents who overcontrol their toddlers Sroufe, “Attachment and Development”; and A. A. Hane and N. A. Fox, “Ordinary Variations in Maternal Caregiving Influence Human Infants’ Stress Reactivity,” Psychological Science 17, no. 6 (2006): 550–556.
1. “and if I beseech” S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, Homer’s Odyssey (London: Macmillan, 1928), 197.
2. The result was Mr. Clown Box W. Mischel, “Processes in Delay of Gratification,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by L. Berkowitz, vol. 7 (New York: Academic Press, 1974), 249–292.
3. those without this type of plan W. Mischel and C. J. Patterson, “Substantive and Structural Elements of Effective Plans for Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, no. 5 (1976): 942–950; C. J. Patterson and W. Mischel, “Effects of Temptation-Inhibiting and Task-Facilitating Plans on Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 33, no. 2 (1976): 209–217.
4. surprisingly powerful If-Then plans For examples of If-Then implementation plans, see P. M. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans,” American Psychologist 54, no. 7 (1999): 493–503; P. M. Gollwitzer, C. Gawrilow, and G. Oettingen, “The Power of Planning: Self-Control by Effective Goal-Striving,” in Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain, edited by R. R. Hassin and others (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 279–296; G. Stadler, G. Oettingen, and P. Gollwitzer, “Intervention Effects of Information and Self-Regulation on Eating Fruits and Vegetables Over Two Years,” Health Psychology 29, no. 3 (2010): 274-283.
5. I will read my textbook P. M. Gollwitzer, “Goal Achievement: The Role of Intentions,” European Review of Social Psychology 4, no. 1 (1993): 141–185; P. M. Gollwitzer and V. Brandstätter, “Implementation Intentions and Effective Goal Pursuit,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 1 (1997): 186–199.
6. while your cool system rests For the concept of two systems, one that “thinks fast” and another that “thinks slow” and is effortful and “lazy,” see D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
7. very difficult laboratory conditions C. Gawrilow, P. M. Gollwitzer, and G. Oettingen, “If-Then Plans Benefit Executive Functions in Children with ADHD,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 30, no. 6 (2011): 616–646; and C. Gawrilow and P. M. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions Facilitate Response Inhibition in Children with ADHD,” Cognitive Therapy and Research 32, no. 2 (2008): 261–280.
1. Consistent with the stereotypes W. Mischel, “Father Absence and Delay of Gratification: Cross-Cultural Comparisons,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63, no. 1 (1961): 116–124.
2. experience with a promise maker Young children’s decision making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Ibid.; W. Mischel and E. Staub, “Effects of Expectancy on Working and Waiting for Larger Rewards,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2, no. 5 (1965): 625–633; W. Mischel and J. C. Masters, “Effects of Probability of Reward Attainment on Responses to Frustration,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3, no. 4 (1966): 390–396; W. Mischel and J. Grusec, “Waiting for Rewards and Punishments: Effects of Time and Probability on Choice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5, no. 1 (1967): 24–31; C. Kidd, H. Palmieri, and R. N. Aslin, “Rational Snacking: Young Children’s Decision-Making on the Marshmallow Task Is Moderated by Beliefs about Environmental Reliability,” Cognition 126, no. 1 (2012): 109–114.
3. Leary was leading the charge D. Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered In a New Age for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
4. schools in the Boston area W. Mischel and C. Gilligan, “Delay of Gratification, Motivation for the Prohibited Gratification, and Resistance to Temptation,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 69, no. 4 (1964): 411–417.
5. chosen to wait for larger This was an early demonstration that such choice preferences can predict important behavior like gaining weight, excessive risk taking, drug use, etc. Researchers now often use such choices as a shortcut measure when the Marshmallow Test cannot be used.
6. McClure and his team See S. M. McClure and others, “Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards,” Science 306, no. 5695 (2004): 503–507.
7. headed by Elke Weber and Bernd Figner B. Figner and others, “Lateral Prefrontal Cortex and Self-Control in Intertemporal Choice,” Nature Neuroscience 13, no. 5 (2010): 538–539.
8. wants what it wants immediately For an alternative interpretation of these results see J. W. Kable and P. W. Glimcher, “An ‘As Soon as Possible’ Effect in Human Intertemporal Decision Making: Behavioral Evidence and Neural Mechanisms,” Journal of Neurophysiology 103, no. 5 (2010): 2513–2531.
9. “idiosyncrasies of human preferences” McClure, “Separate Neural Systems,” 506.
10. temptation in the particular situation E. Tsukayama and A. L. Duckworth, “Domain-Specific Temporal Discounting and Temptation,” Judgment and Decision Making 5, no. 2 (2010): 72–82.
11. “I can resist everything except temptation” O. Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan: A Play about a Good Woman, Act I (1892). For research on the same point, see E. Tsukayama, A. L. Duckworth, and B. Kim, “Resisting Everything Except Temptation: Evidence and an Explanation for Domain-Specific Impulsivity,” European Journal of Personality 26, no. 3 (2011): 318–334.
1. “the Irish intellect” J. D. Watson with A. Berry, DNA: The Secret of Life (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2003), 361.
2. American psychology into the 1950s B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1953).
3. The newborn’s slate S. Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 2003).
4. babies are born accountants N. Angier, “Insights from the Youngest Minds,” New York Times, May 3, 2012; F. Xu, E. S. Spelke, and S. Goddard, “Number Sense in Human Infants,” Developmental Science 8, no. 1 (2005): 88–101.
5. Babies enter the world M. K. Rothbart, L. K. Ellis, and M. I. Posner, “Temperament and Self-Regulation,” in Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications, edited by K. D. Vohs and R. F. Baumeister (New York: Guilford, 2011), 441–460.
6. discuss how their baby’s temperament A. H. Buss and R. Plomin, Temperament: Early Developing Personality Traits (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1984); D. Watson and L. A. Clark, “The PANAS-X: Manual for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule—Expanded Form,” University of Iowa, Iowa Research Online (1999); and M. K. Rothbart and S. A. Ahadi, “Temperament and the Development of Personality,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, no. 1 (1994): 55–66.
7. a reasonable estimate from twin research S. H. Losoya and others, “Origins of Familial Similarity in Parenting: A Study of Twins and Adoptive Siblings,” Developmental Psychology 33, no. 6 (1997): 1012; R. Plomin, “The Role of Inheritance in Behavior,” Science 248, no. 4952 (1990): 183–188.
8. parse nature and nurture W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and O. Ayduk, Introduction to Personality: Toward an Integrative Science of the Person, 8th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2008).
9. nature and nurture are not easily separated D. Kaufer and D. Francis, “Nurture, Nature, and the Stress That Is Life,” in Future Science: Cutting-Edge Essays from the New Generation of Scientists, edited by M. Brockman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 56–71.
10. well-sharpened pencil Mischel, Shoda, and Ayduk, Introduction to Personality.
11. Given these discoveries F. A. Champagne and R. Mashoodh, “Genes in Context: Gene-Environment Interplay and the Origins of Individual Differences in Behavior,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 18, no. 3 (2009): 127–131.
12. mothers exposed to violence K. M. Radtke and others, “Transgenerational Impact of Intimate Partner Violence on Methylation in the Promoter of the Glucocorticoid Receptor,” Translational Psychiatry 1, no. 7 (2011): e21.
13. Stress in childhood D. D. Francis and others, “Maternal Care, Gene Expression, and the Development of Individual Differences in Stress Reactivity,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 896, no. 1 (1999): 66–84.
14. non-genomic characteristics of our cells are inherited Ibid.; I. C. Weaver and others, “Epigenetic Programming by Maternal Behavior,” Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 8 (2004): 847–854.
15. active agent in her own development L. A. Schmidt and N. A. Fox, “Individual Differences in Childhood Shyness: Origins, Malleability, and Developmental Course,” in Advances in Personality Science, edited by D. Cervone and W. Mischel (New York: Guilford, 2002), 83–105.
16. genetically brave mice placed with shy mothers D. D. Francis and others, “Epigenetic Sources of Behavioral Differences in Mice,” Nature Neuroscience 6, no. 5 (2003): 445–446.
17. “maze-dull” or “maze-bright” R. M. Cooper and J. P. Zubek, “Effects of Enriched and Restricted Early Environments on the Learning Ability of Bright and Dull Rats,” Canadian Journal of Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie 12, no. 3 (1958): 159–164.
18. high LG mothers benefited greatly M. J. Meaney, “Maternal Care, Gene Expression, and the Transmission of Individual Differences in Stress Reactivity across Generations,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 24, no. 1 (2001): 1161–1192.
19. upward trend in IQ scores J. R. Flynn, “The Mean IQ of Americans: Massive Gains 1932 to 1978,” Psychological Bulletin 95, no. 1 (1984): 29–51; J. R. Flynn, “Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure,” Psychological Bulletin 101, no. 2 (1987): 171–191.
20. “A predisposition does not a predetermination make” Watson and Berry, DNA: The Secret of Life, 391.
21. a study in New Zealand A. Caspi and others, “Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene,” Science 301, no. 5631 (2003): 386–389.
22. even political beliefs Mischel, Shoda, and Ayduk, Introduction to Personality.
23. “inverting implicit assumptions” Kaufer and Francis, “Nurture, Nature, and the Stress That Is Life,” 63.
1. well-intentioned policemen B. K. Payne, “Weapon Bias: Split-Second Decisions and Unintended Stereotyping,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15, no. 6 (2006): 287–291.
1. George Ramirez Source for material in this section: personal interview with George Ramirez, March 14, 2013, at KIPP Academy Middle School, South Bronx; G. Ramirez, unpublished autobiography, March 2013; and G. Ramirez, “Changed by the Bell,” Yale Herald, February 17, 2012.
2. “I probably worked harder” D. Remnick, “New Yorker Profiles: ‘We Are Alive’—Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two,” The New Yorker, July 30, 2012, 56.
3. executive function (EF) EF is sometimes called executive control or EC.
4. three features of EF E. T. Berkman, E. B. Falk, and M. D. Lieberman, “Interactive Effects of Three Core Goal Pursuit Processes on Brain Control Systems: Goal Maintenance, Performance Monitoring, and Response Inhibition,” PLoS ONE 7, no. 6 (2012): e40334.
5. Cognitive scientists can now see P. D. Zelazo and S. M. Carlson, “Hot and Cool Executive Function in Childhood and Adolescence: Development and Plasticity,” Child Development Perspectives 6, no. 4 (2012): 354–360; B. J. Casey and others, “Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Delay of Gratification 40 Years Later,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 36 (2011): 14998–15003; and M. I. Posner and M. K. Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain, Human Brain Development Series (Washington, DC: APA Books, 2007).
6. EF allows planning C. Blair, “School Readiness: Integrating Cognition and Emotion in a Neurobiological Conceptualization of Children’s Functioning at School Entry,” American Psychologist 57, no. 2 (2002): 111–127; and R. A. Barkley, “The Executive Functions and Self-Regulation: An Evolutionary Neuropsychological Perspective,” Neuropsychology Review 11, no. 1 (2001): 1–29.
7. It is not a surprise K. L. Bierman and others, “Executive Functions and School Readiness Intervention: Impact, Moderation, and Mediation in the Head Start REDI Program,” Development and Psychopathology 20, no. 3 (2008): 821–843; and M. M. McClelland and others, “Links between Behavioral Regulation and Preschoolers’ Literacy, Vocabulary, and Math Skills,” Developmental Psychology 43, no. 3 (2007): 947–959.
8. circuits involved in EF are closely interconnected Posner and Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain.
9. Children who lack EF N. Eisenberg and others, “The Relations of Emotionality and Regulation to Children’s Anger-Related Reactions,” Child Development 65, no. 1 (1994): 109–128; A. L. Hill and others, “Profiles of Externalizing Behavior Problems for Boys and Girls across Preschool: The Roles of Emotion Regulation and Inattention,” Developmental Psychology 42, no. 5 (2006): 913–928; and G. Kochanska, K. Murray, and K. C. Coy, “Inhibitory Control as a Contributor to Conscience in Childhood: From Toddler to Early School Age,” Child Development 68, no. 2 (1997): 263–277.
10. These skills help kids not only delay M. L. Rodriguez, W. Mischel, and Y. Shoda, “Cognitive Person Variables in the Delay of Gratification of Older Children at Risk,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 2 (1989): 358–367; and O. Ayduk, W. Mischel, and G. Downey, “Attentional Mechanisms Linking Rejection to Hostile Reactivity: The Role of ‘Hot’ versus ‘Cool’ Focus,” Psychological Science 13, no. 5 (2002): 443–448.
11. they can be interpersonally cool E. Tsukayama, A. L. Duckworth, and B. E. Kim, “Domain-Specific Impulsivity in School-Age Children,” Developmental Science 16, no. 6 (2013): 879–893.
12. development of flexible and adaptive self-control S. M. Carlson and R. F. White, “Executive Function, Pretend Play, and Imagination,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination, edited by M. Taylor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
13. “theory of mind” S. M. Carlson and L. J. Moses, “Individual Differences in Inhibitory Control and Children’s Theory of Mind,” Child Development 72, no. 4 (2001): 1032–1053.
14. “By feeling, not by thinking” Giacomo Rizzolatti quoted in S. Blakeslee, “Cells That Read Minds,” New York Times, January 10, 2006.
15. negative effects of stress S. E. Taylor and A. L. Stanton, “Coping Resources, Coping Processes, and Mental Health,” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 3 (2007): 377–401.
16. As Taylor and her colleagues reported in 2011 S. Saphire-Bernstein and others, “Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) Is Related to Psychological Resources,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 37 (2011): 15118; and B. S. McEwen, “Protective and Damaging Effects of Stress Mediators: Central Role of the Brain,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 8, no. 4 (2006): 283–297.
17. you can be an active agent A. Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York: Freeman, 1997); and A. Bandura, “Toward a Psychology of Human Agency,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 1, no. 2 (2006): 164–180.
18. people’s personal theories C. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Random House, 2006).
19. “I suck in math” Ibid., 57.
20. “I think I can!” W. Piper, The Little Engine That Could (New York: Penguin, 1930).
21. “internal versus external control” W. Mischel, R. Zeiss, and A. Zeiss, “Internal-External Control and Persistence: Validation and Implications of the Stanford Preschool Internal-External Scale,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 29, no. 2 (1974): 265–278.
22. The child’s self-perception Bandura, “Toward a Psychology of Human Agency.”
23. The children’s sense of efficacy and agency M. R. Lepper, D. Greene, and R. E. Nisbett, “Undermining Children’s Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward: A Test of the ‘Overjustification’ Hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28, no. 1 (1973): 129–137; and E. L. Deci, R. Koestner, and R. M. Ryan, “A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 125, no. 6 (1999): 627–668.
24. optimists cope more effectively S. E. Taylor and D. A. Armor, “Positive Illusions and Coping with Adversity,” Journal of Personality 64, no. 4 (1996): 873–898; and Saphire-Bernstein and others, “Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) Is Related to Psychological Resources.” See also C. S. Carver, M. F. Scheier, and S. C. Segerstrom, “Optimism,” Clinical Psychology Review 30, no. 7 (2010): 879–889.
25. coronary bypass surgery M. E. Scheier, J. K. Weintraub, and C. S. Carver, “Coping with Stress: Divergent Strategies of Optimists and Pessimists,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51, no. 6 (1986): 1257–1264.
26. “I really hate” W. T. Cox and others, “Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Depression: The Integrated Perspective,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7, no. 5 (2012): 427–449.
27. They attribute the bad things L. Y. Abramson, M. E. Seligman, and J. D. Teasdale, “Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 87, no. 1 (1978): 49–74.
28. pessimistic explanatory style C. Peterson, M. E. Seligman, and G. E. Valliant, “Pessimistic Explanatory Style Is a Risk Factor for Physical Illness: A Thirty-Five-Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55, no. 1 (1988): 23–27.
29. players were all outstanding enough C. Peterson and M. E. Seligman “Explanatory Style and Illness,” Journal of Personality 55, no. 2 (1987): 237–265.
30. optimists deal with failure constructively Interview with Seligman reported in D. Goleman, “Research Affirms Power of Positive Thinking,” New York Times, February 3, 1987. See also M. E. Scheier and C. S. Carver, “Dispositional Optimism and Physical Well-Being: The Influence of Generalized Outcome Expectancies on Health,” Journal of Personality 55, no. 2 (1987): 169–210; and Carver, Scheier, and Segerstrom, “Optimism.”
31. explanatory style tells you who gives up Quoted in D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bantam Books, 2005), 88–89.
1. All the world’s a stage J. P. Kimble, ed., Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Comedy (London: S. Gosnell, Printer, 1810), Act II, Scene 7, 139–166.
2. travel through time H. Ersner-Hershfield and others, “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow: Individual Differences in Future Self-Continuity Account for Saving,” Judgment and Decision Making 4, no. 4 (2009): 280–286.
3. the stranger pattern This discussion draws extensively on “The Face Tool” section in S. Benartzi with R. Lewin, Save More Tomorrow: Practical Behavioral Finance Solutions to Improve 401(k) Plans (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).
4. Hal Hershfield, now at New York University H. Ersner-Hershfield, G. E. Wimmer, and B. Knutson, “Saving for the Future Self: Neural Measures of Future Self-Continuity Predict Temporal Discounting,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 4, no. 1 (2009): 85–92.
5. The same group of researchers Ersner-Hershfield and others, “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow.”
6. representations of their retirement-age selves H. E. Hershfield and others, “Increasing Saving Behavior through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self,” Journal of Marketing Research: Special Issue 48, SPL (2011): 23–37.
7. in 401(k) retirement plans Benartzi, Save More Tomorrow, 142–158; Hershfield and others, “Increasing Saving Behavior”; S. M. McClure and others, “Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards,” Science 306, no. 5695 (2004): 503–507.
8. unethical but profitable business decisions H. E. Hershfield, T. R. Cohen, and L. Thompson, “Short Horizons and Tempting Situations: Lack of Continuity to Our Future Selves Leads to Unethical Decision Making and Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117, no. 2 (2012): 298–310.
1. Psychologists Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman Y. Trope and N. Liberman, “Construal Level Theory,” in Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, vol. 1, edited by P. A. M. Van Lange and others (New York: Sage Publications, 2012), 118–134; N. Liberman and Y. Trope, “The Psychology of Transcending the Here and Now,” Science 322, no. 5905 (2008): 1201–1205.
2. why people make decisions D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson, “Prospection: Experiencing the Future,” Science 317, no. 5843 (2007): 1351–1354.
3. The psychological immune system D. T. Gilbert and J. E. Ebert, “Decisions and Revisions: The Affective Forecasting of Changeable Outcomes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 4 (2002): 503–514; D. Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006); and D. Kahneman and J. Snell, “Predicting a Changing Taste: Do People Know What They Will Like?,” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 5, no. 3 (1992): 187–200.
4. imagine yourself doing it in the present D. I. Tamir and J. P. Mitchell, “The Default Network Distinguishes Construals of Proximal versus Distal Events,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, no. 10 (2011): 2945–2955.
5. Such high-level, abstract thinking What Metcalfe and Mischel (“A Hot/Cool System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower,” Psychological Review 106, no. 1 [1999]: 3–19) call the hot system overlaps with what other researchers call the default system (Tamir and Mitchell, “The Default Network”) or the visceral system (G. Loewenstein, “Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65, no. 3 [1996]: 272–292) or System 1 (D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow [New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011]).
6. reduces the automatic preference K. Fujita and others, “Construal Levels and Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90, no. 3 (2006): 351–367.
7. Recall that when preschoolers Ibid.; W. Mischel and B. Moore, “Effects of Attention to Symbolically Presented Rewards on Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28, no. 2 (1973): 172–179; W. Mischel and N. Baker, “Cognitive Appraisals and Transformations in Delay Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31, no. 2 (1975): 254.
8. Kevin Ochsner and his team H. Kober and others, “Prefrontal-Striatal Pathway Underlies Cognitive Regulation of Craving,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 33 (2010): 14811–14816.
9. cognitively regulated their appetitive impulses J. A. Silvers and others, “Neural Links between the Ability to Delay Gratification and Regulation of Craving in Childhood.” Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, 2013.
10. stifle the craving For regulation of craving by cognitive strategies in cigarette smokers, see Kober, “Prefrontal-Striatal Pathway”; R. E. Bliss and others, “The Influence of Situation and Coping on Relapse Crisis Outcomes after Smoking Cessation,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 57, no. 3 (1989): 443–449; S. Shiffman and others, “First Lapses to Smoking: Within-Subjects Analysis of Real-Time Reports,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64, no. 2 (1996): 366–379.
11. penetrated my hot system As George Loewenstein (“Out of Control”) noted, doctors generally smoke less than most people, but the difference is greatest among those who regularly deal with images of the smoke-blackened lungs of their diseased patients.
12. aversive counterconditioning W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and O. Ayduk, Introduction to Personality: Toward an Integrative Science of the Person, 8th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2008).
13. improve informed consent for DNA testing This work was done in collaboration also with Yuichi Shoda.
14. “pre-living” scenarios Y. Shoda and others, “Psychological Interventions and Genetic Testing: Facilitating Informed Decisions about BRCA1/2 Cancer Susceptibility,” Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings 5, no. 1 (1998): 3–17. See also S. J. Curry and K. M. Emmons, “Theoretical Models for Predicting and Improving Compliance with Breast Cancer Screening,” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 16, no. 4 (1994): 302–316.
15. “You, however, are not convinced that all is well” S. M. Miller, “Monitoring and Blunting: Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess Styles of Information Seeking under Threat,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52, no. 2 (1987): 345–353.
16. categorized as “monitors” S. M. Miller and C. E. Mangan, “Interacting Effects of Information and Coping Style in Adapting to Gynecologic Stress: Should the Doctor Tell All?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45, no. 1 (1983): 223–236.
17. if there is nothing you can do to reduce the stress Miller and Mangan, “Interacting Effects of Information and Coping Style”; and S. M. Miller, “Monitoring versus Blunting Styles of Coping with Cancer Influence the Information Patients Want and Need about Their Disease: Implications for Cancer Screening and Management,” Cancer 76, no. 2 (1995): 167–177.
1. psychological distancing and cognitive reappraisal A. Luerssen and O. Ayduk, “The Role of Emotion and Emotion Regulation in the Ability to Delay Gratification,” in Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 2nd ed., edited by J. Gross (2014); and E. Kross and O. Ayduk, “Facilitating Adaptive Emotional Analysis: Distinguishing Distanced-Analysis of Depressive Experiences from Immersed-Analysis and Distraction,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34, no. 7 (2008): 924–938.
2. many others get worse S. Nolen-Hoeksema, “The Role of Rumination in Depressive Disorders and Mixed Anxiety/Depressive Symptoms,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109, no. 3 (2000): 504–511; S. Nolen-Hoeksema, B. E. Wisco, and S. Lyubomirsky, “Rethinking Rumination,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3, no. 5 (2008): 400–424.
3. experiments on self-distancing E. Kross, O. Ayduk, and W. Mischel, “When Asking ‘Why’ Does Not Hurt: Distinguishing Rumination from Reflective Processing of Negative Emotions,” Psychological Science 16, no. 9 (2005): 709–715.
4. In a 2010 experiment O. Ayduk and E. Kross, “From a Distance: Implications of Spontaneous Self-Distancing for Adaptive Self-Reflection,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, no. 5 (2010): 809–829.
5. rumination: elevated blood pressure O. Ayduk and E. Kross, “Enhancing the Pace of Recovery: Self-Distanced Analysis of Negative Experiences Reduces Blood Pressure Reactivity,” Psychological Science 19, no. 3 (2008): 229–231.
6. large twenty-one-day daily diary study Ayduk and Kross, “From a Distance,” study 3.
7. reappraising intensely negative stimuli J. J. Gross and O. P. John, “Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes: Implications for Affect, Relationships, and Well-Being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 2 (2003): 348–362; and K. N. Ochsner and J. J. Gross, “Cognitive Emotion Regulation Insights from Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17, no. 2 (2008): 153–158.
8. linked in earlier research K. A. Dodge, “Social-Cognitive Mechanisms in the Development of Conduct Disorder and Depression,” Annual Review of Psychology 44, no. 1 (1993): 559–584; K. L. Bierman and others, “School Outcomes of Aggressive-Disruptive Children: Prediction from Kindergarten Risk Factors and Impact of the Fast Track Prevention Program,” Aggressive Behavior 39, no. 2 (2013): 114–130.
9. boys and girls were cued E. Kross and others, “The Effect of Self-Distancing on Adaptive versus Maladaptive Self-Reflection in Children,” Emotion-APA 11, no. 5 (2011): 1032–1039.
10. emotional pain really do hurt E. Kross and others, “Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations with Physical Pain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 15 (2011): 6270–6275.
11. Naomi Eisenberger and her colleagues N. I. Eisenberger, M. D. Lieberman, and K. D. Williams, “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion,” Science 302, no. 5643 (2003): 290–292.
12. This antidote E. Selcuk and others, “Mental Representations of Attachment Figures Facilitate Recovery Following Upsetting Autobiographical Memory Recall,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103, no. 2 (2012): 362–378.
1. destructive effects of high RS R. Romero-Canyas and others, “Rejection Sensitivity and the Rejection-Hostility Link in Romantic Relationships,” Journal of Personality 78, no. 1 (2010): 119–148; and G. Downey and others, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Close Relationships: Rejection Sensitivity and Rejection by Romantic Partners,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no. 2 (1998): 545–560.
2. RS children are more easily victimized V. Purdie and G. Downey, “Rejection Sensitivity and Adolescent Girls’ Vulnerability to Relationship-Centered Difficulties,” Child Maltreatment 5, no. 4 (2000): 338–349.
3. making depression more likely O. Ayduk, W. Mischel, and G. Downey, “Attentional Mechanisms Linking Rejection to Hostile Reactivity: The Role of ‘Hot’ versus ‘Cool’ Focus,” Psychological Science 13, no. 5 (2002): 443–448; O. Ayduk, G. Downey, and M. Kim, “Rejection Sensitivity and Depressive Symptoms in Women,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27, no. 7 (2001): 868–877.
4. dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula G. Bush, P. Luu, and M. I. Posner, “Cognitive and Emotional Influences in Anterior Cingulate Cortex,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4, no. 6 (2000): 215–222. See also G. M. Slavich and others, “Neural Sensitivity to Social Rejection Is Associated with Inflammatory Responses to Social Stress,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 33 (2010): 14817–14822.
5. long-term inflammation R. M. Sapolsky, L. M. Romero, and A. U. Munck, “How Do Glucocorticoids Influence Stress Responses? Integrating Permissive, Suppressive, Stimulatory, and Preparative Actions,” Endocrine Reviews 21, no. 1 (2000): 55–89.
6. lower self-esteem, lower self-worth O. Ayduk and others, “Regulating the Interpersonal Self: Strategic Self-Regulation for Coping with Rejection Sensitivity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 5 (2000): 776–792.
7. coped as well in their lives O. Ayduk and others, “Rejection Sensitivity and Executive Control: Joint Predictors of Borderline Personality Features,” Journal of Research in Personality 42, no. 1 (2008): 151–168.
8. High RS youngsters were less accepted O. Ayduk and others, “Regulating the Interpersonal Self.”
9. “When I get criticism, I write it down” For the benefits of writing about emotional experiences see J. W. Pennebaker, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotion (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), and J. W. Pennebaker, “Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process,” Psychological Science 8, no. 3 (1997): 162–166.
10. predicted their body mass index T. R. Schlam and others, “Preschoolers’ Delay of Gratification Predicts Their Body Mass 30 Years Later,” Journal of Pediatrics 162, no. 1 (2012): 91.
11. thousand children born in Dunedin T. E. Moffitt and others, “A Gradient of Childhood Self-Control Predicts Health, Wealth, and Public Safety,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 7 (2011): 2693–2698.
1. “psychological immune system” Daniel Gilbert discusses both the psychological and the biological immune systems in Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006), 162. For how the psychological immune system also leads to poor predictions of future happiness, see D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson, “Prospection: Experiencing the Future,” Science 317, no. 5843 (2007): 1351–1354; and D. T. Gilbert and others, “Immune Neglect: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no. 3 (1998): 617–638.
2. better than they rate their peers S. E. Taylor and D. A. Armor, “Positive Illusions and Coping with Adversity,” Journal of Personality 64, no. 4 (1996): 873–898; and S. E. Taylor and P. M. Gollwitzer, “Effects of Mindset on Positive Illusions,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, no. 2 (1995): 213–226.
3. “routinely sum to more than 100 percent” D. G. Myers, “Self-Serving Bias,” in This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking, edited by J. Brockman (New York: Harper Perennial, 2012), 37–38.
4. High self-enhancers have a healthier HPA axis profile S. E. Taylor and others, “Are Self-Enhancing Cognitions Associated with Healthy or Unhealthy Biological Profiles?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 4 (2003): 605–615.
5. self-affirming mental states S. E. Taylor and others, “Psychological Resources, Positive Illusions, and Health,” American Psychologist 55, no. 1 (2000): 99–109.
6. perceive themselves more accurately D. A. Armor and S. E. Taylor, “When Predictions Fail: The Dilemma of Unrealistic Optimism,” in Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, edited by T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, and D. Kahneman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 334–347; and S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown, “Illusion and Well-Being: A Social Psychological Perspective on Mental Health,” Psychological Bulletin 103, no. 2 (1988): 193–210.
7. somewhat illusory, glow M. D. Alicke, “Global Self-Evaluation as Determined by the Desirability and Controllability of Trait Adjectives,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, no. 6 (1985): 1621–1630; and G. W. Brown and others, “Social Support, Self-Esteem and Depression,” Psychological Medicine 16, no. 4 (1986): 813–831.
8. as Daniel Gilbert points out Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, 162.
9. Aaron Beck A. T. Beck and others, Cognitive Therapy of Depression (New York: Guilford Press, 1979).
10. clinically depressed patients evaluate their performance P. M. Lewinsohn and others, “Social Competence and Depression: The Role of Illusory Self-Perceptions,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 89, no. 2 (1980): 203–212.
11. inflation in self-evaluation L. B. Alloy and L. Y. Abramson, “Judgment of Contingency in Depressed and Nondepressed Students: Sadder but Wiser?,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 108, no. 4 (1979): 441–485.
12. happy and sad feelings impacted performance J. Wright and W. Mischel, “Influence of Affect on Cognitive Social Learning Person Variables,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 43, no. 5 (1982): 901–914; see also A. M. Isen and others, “Affect, Accessibility of Material in Memory, and Behavior: A Cognitive Loop?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, no. 1 (1978): 1–12.
13. They evaluated themselves as more intelligent To learn about regulating and cooling anxiety and other negative emotions, see J. Gross, “Emotion Regulation: Taking Stock and Moving Forward,” Emotion 13, no. 3 (2013): 359–365; and K. N. Ochsner and others, “Rethinking Feelings: An fMRI Study of the Cognitive Regulation of Emotion,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 14, no. 8 (2002): 1215–1229.
14. friendships that were just as long lasting S. E. Taylor and others, “Portrait of the Self-Enhancer: Well Adjusted and Well Liked or Maladjusted and Friendless?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84, no. 1 (2003): 165–176.
15. maybe his goal was to impress himself S. M. Carlson and L. J. Moses, “Individual Differences in Inhibitory Control and Children’s Theory of Mind,” Child Development 72, no. 4 (2001): 1032–1053.
16. individual strengths and self-regard E. Diener and M. E. Seligman, “Very Happy People,” Psychological Science 13, no. 1 (2002): 81–84; E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan, eds., Handbook of Self-Determination Research (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2002).
17. leads to overconfidence D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
18. The scandal of General Petraeus S. Shane and S. G. Stolberg, “A Brilliant Career with a Meteoric Rise and an Abrupt Fall,” New York Times, November 10, 2012.
19. it was simulated and analyzed by Maria Konnikova M. Konnikova, The Limits of Self-Control: Self-Control, Illusory Control, and Risky Financial Decision Making, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2013.
20. “An optimistic bias plays a role” Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 256.
21. 1,100 new inventions T. Astebro, “The Return to Independent Invention: Evidence of Unrealistic Optimism, Risk Seeking or Skewness Loving?,” Economic Journal 113, no. 484 (2003): 226–239; and T. Astebro and S. Elhedhli, “The Effectiveness of Simple Decision Heuristics: Forecasting Commercial Success for Early-Stage Ventures,” Management Science 52, no. 3 (2006): 395–409.
22. “completely certain” of their diagnosis Reported in Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 263, based on E. S. Berner and M. L. Graber, “Overconfidence as a Cause of Diagnostic Error in Medicine,” American Journal of Medicine 121, no. 5 (2008): S2–S23.
23. Early in my career W. Mischel, Personality and Assessment (New York: Wiley, 1968).
24. The weight of the patients’ folders Mischel, Personality and Assessment; and J. J. Lasky and others, “Post-Hospital Adjustment as Predicted by Psychiatric Patients and by Their Staff,” Journal of Consulting Psychology 23, no. 3 (1959): 213–218.
25. the candidates’ simple self-reports W. Mischel, “Predicting the Success of Peace Corps Volunteers in Nigeria,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1, no. 5 (1965): 510–517.
26. a similar lack of validity Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
27. attempting to walk on hot coals C. Pogash, “A Self-Improvement Quest That Led to Burned Feet,” New York Times, July 22, 2012.
1. a person who lies and cheats R. V. Burton, “Generality of Honesty Reconsidered,” Psychological Review 70, no. 6 (1963): 481–499.
2. Judge Wachtler was famously revered J. M. Caher, King of the Mountain: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Chief Judge Sol Wachtler (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998).
3. Tiger Woods J. Surowiecki, “Branded a Cheat,” The New Yorker, December 21, 2009.
4. “Only the little people pay taxes” D. Gilson, “Only Little People Pay Taxes,” Mother Jones, April 18, 2011.
5. We make these judgments easily W. Mischel, Personality and Assessment (New York: Wiley, 1968); W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and O. Ayduk, Introduction to Personality: Toward an Integrative Science of the Person, 8th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2008).
6. The assumption that people are broadly consistent D. T. Gilbert and P. S. Malone, “The Correspondence Bias,” Psychological Bulletin 117, no. 1 (1995), 21–38; M. D. Lieberman and others, “Reflexion and Reflection: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Attributional Inference,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 34 (2002): 199–249; Mischel, Personality and Assessment.
7. failed to support the core trait assumption H. Hartshorne, M. A. May, and J. B. Maller, Studies in the Nature of Character, II Studies in Service and Self-Control (New York: Macmillan, 1929); Mischel, Personality and Assessment; W. Mischel, “Toward an Integrative Science of the Person (Prefatory Chapter),” Annual Review of Psychology 55 (2004): 1–22; T. Newcomb, “The Consistency of Certain Extrovert-Introvert Behavior Patterns in Fifty-One Problem Boys,” Teachers College Record 31, no. 3 (1929): 263–265; W. Mischel and P. K. Peake, “Beyond Déjà Vu in the Search for Cross-Situational Consistency,” Psychological Review 89, no. 6 (1982): 730–755.
8. In 1968, I undertook a comprehensive review Mischel, Personality and Assessment.
9. failed to demonstrate the consistency of behavior J. Block, “Millennial Contrarianism: The Five-Factor Approach to Personality Description 5 Years Later,” Journal of Research in Personality 35, no. 1 (2001): 98–107; W. Mischel, “Toward a Cognitive Social Learning Reconceptualization of Personality,” Psychological Review 80, no. 4 (1973): 252–283; W. Mischel, “From Personality and Assessment (1968) to Personality Science,” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 2 (2009): 282–290.
10. While the debate continued I. Van Mechelen, “A Royal Road to Understanding the Mechanisms Underlying Person-in-Context Behavior,” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 2 (2009): 179–186; and V. Zayas and Y. Shoda, “Three Decades after the Personality Paradox: Understanding Situations,” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 2 (2009): 280–281.
11. predict specific behavior Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow; Mischel, Personality and Assessment; Van Mechelen, “A Royal Road to Understanding.”
12. my research team and I did find consistency J. C. Wright and W. Mischel, “A Conditional Approach to Dispositional Constructs: The Local Predictability of Social Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, no. 6 (1987): 1159–1177; and W. Mischel and Y. Shoda, “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure,” Psychological Review 102, no. 2 (1995): 246–268.
1. Descriptions by the counselors J. C. Wright and W. Mischel, “Conditional Hedges and the Intuitive Psychology of Traits,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55, no. 3 (1988): 454–469.
2. classic and intuitively compelling conception See W. Mischel, Personality and Assessment (New York: Wiley, 1968); and W. Mischel, “Toward an Integrative Science of the Person (Prefatory Chapter),” Annual Review of Psychology 55 (2004): 1–22.
3. If-Then patterns tend to be fairly stable Key findings and methods are in Y. Shoda, W. Mischel, and J. C. Wright, “Intraindividual Stability in the Organization and Patterning of Behavior: Incorporating Psychological Situations into the Idiographic Analysis of Personality,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, no. 4 (1994): 674–687; W. Mischel and Y. Shoda, “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure,” Psychological Review 102, no. 2 (1995): 246–268.
4. guide treatment and educational plans A. L. Zakriski, J. C. Wright, and M. K. Underwood, “Gender Similarities and Differences in Children’s Social Behavior: Finding Personality in Contextualized Patterns of Adaptation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 5 (2006): 844–855; and R. E. Smith and others, “Behavioral Signatures at the Ballpark: Intraindividual Consistency of Adults’ Situation-Behavior Patterns and Their Interpersonal Consequences,” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 2 (2009): 187–195.
5. Since the Wediko research M. A. Fournier, D. S. Moskowitz, and D. C. Zuroff, “Integrating Dispositions, Signatures, and the Interpersonal Domain,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94, no. 3 (2008): 531–545; I. Van Mechelen, “A Royal Road to Understanding the Mechanisms Underlying Person-in-Context Behavior,” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 2 (2009): 179–186; and O. Ayduk and others, “Verbal Intelligence and Self-Regulatory Competencies: Joint Predictors of Boys’ Aggression,” Journal of Research in Personality 41, no. 2 (2007): 374–388.
6. behavioral signature of personality Mischel and Shoda, “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality.”
7. What we found for aggression at Wediko W. Mischel and P. K. Peake, “Beyond Déjà Vu in the Search for Cross-Situational Consistency,” Psychological Review 89, no. 6 (1982): 730–755.
8. illusions of consistency Mischel and Shoda, “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality.”
9. stability of our If-Then patterns Mischel and Peake, “Beyond Déjà Vu in the Search for Cross-Situational Consistency.”
10. how you decide to evaluate his overall behavior W. Mischel, “Continuity and Change in Personality,” American Psychologist 24, no. 11 (1969): 1012–1018.
11. carefully structured daily diaries Y. Shoda and others, “Cognitive-Affective Processing System Analysis of Intra-Individual Dynamics in Collaborative Therapeutic Assessment: Translating Basic Theory and Research into Clinical Applications,” Journal of Personality 81, no. 6 (2013): 554–568.
12. did not use a cooling strategy These relationships were influenced importantly by the child’s intelligence. See Ayduk, “Verbal Intelligence and Self-Regulatory Competencies.”
1. “The Angel of the Bridge” J. Cheever, “The Angel of the Bridge,” The New Yorker, October 21, 1961.
2. Within the hot memories of his amygdala J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996); J. LeDoux, “Parallel Memories: Putting Emotions Back into the Brain,” in The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness, edited by J. Brockman (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 31–47.
3. The unfortunate dogs For a discussion of this kind of “classical conditioning” see W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and O. Ayduk, Introduction to Personality: Toward an Integrative Science of the Person, 8th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2008), Chapter 10.
4. “If a response antagonistic to anxiety” J. Wolpe, Reciprocal Inhibition Therapy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), 71.
5. Cheever’s story was a preview A. Bandura, Principles of Behavior Modification (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969); G. L. Paul, Insight vs. Desensitization in Psychotherapy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966); and A. T. Beck and others, Cognitive Therapy of Depression (New York: Guilford Press, 1979).
6. just petted the dog Bandura, Principles of Behavior Modification.
7. Bandura’s research showed Ibid.; A. Bandura, J. E. Grusec, and F. L. Menlove, “Vicarious Extinction of Avoidance Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5, no. 1 (1967): 16–23; and A. Bandura and F. L. Menlove, “Factors Determining Vicarious Extinction of Avoidance Behavior through Symbolic Modeling,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, no. 2 (1968): 99–108.
8. “guided mastery experiences” L. Williams, “Guided Mastery Treatment of Agoraphobia: Beyond Stimulus Exposure,” in Progress in Behavior Modification, vol. 26, edited by M. Hersen, R. M. Eisler, and P. M. Miller (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990), 89–121.
9. “The changes endured” A. Bandura, “Albert Bandura,” in A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 9, edited by G. Lindzey and W. M. Runyan (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006), 62–63.
10. Gordon Paul assigned college students Paul, Insight vs. Desensitization in Psychotherapy; G. L. Paul, “Insight versus Desensitization in Psychotherapy Two Years after Termination,” Journal of Consulting Psychology 31, no. 4 (1967): 333–348.
1. strength model of self-control M. Muraven, D. M. Tice, and R. F. Baumeister, “Self-Control as Limited Resource: Regulatory Depletion Patterns,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, no. 3 (1998): 774–789.
2. Radish Experiment R. F. Baumeister and others, “Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, no. 5 (1998): 1252–1265.
3. no matter which act of self-control R. F. Baumeister and J. Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).
4. not caused by the reasons M. Inzlicht and B. J. Schmeichel, “What Is Ego Depletion? Toward a Mechanistic Revision of the Resource Model of Self-Control,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7, no. 5 (2012): 450–463.
5. As motivation to exert self-control increases M. Muraven and E. Slessareva, “Mechanisms of Self-Control Failure: Motivation and Limited Resources,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, no. 7 (2003): 894–906.
6. Their later performance was not impaired C. Martijn and others, “Getting a Grip on Ourselves: Challenging Expectancies about Loss of Energy after Self-Control,” Social Cognition 20, no. 6 (2002): 441–460.
7. after a strenuous experience V. Job, C. S. Dweck, and G. M. Walton, “Ego Depletion—Is It All in Your Head? Implicit Theories about Willpower Affect Self-Regulation,” Psychological Science 21, no. 11 (2010): 1686–1693.
8. These findings underscore the importance See also D. C. Molden and others, “Motivational versus Metabolic Effects of Carbohydrates on Self-Control,” Psychological Science 23, no. 10 (2012): 1137–1144.
9. French parenting P. Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).
10. Chinese American mother A. Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).
11. A dozen years earlier J. R. Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Kids Turn Out the Way They Do (London: Bloomsbury, 1998).
12. adult models influence A. Bandura, “Vicarious Processes: A Case of No-Trial Learning,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 2, edited by L. Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1965), 1–55.
13. model’s attributes and self-reward behavior W. Mischel and R. M. Liebert, “Effects of Discrepancies between Observed and Imposed Reward Criteria on Their Acquisition and Transmission,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3, no. 1 (1966): 45–53; W. Mischel and R. M. Liebert, “The Role of Power in the Adoption of Self-Reward Patterns,” Child Development 38, no. 3 (1967): 673–683.
14. learned from a model who was lenient with herself The impact of models depends on characteristics like their warmth, nurturance, and power. See J. Grusec and W. Mischel, “Model’s Characteristics as Determinants of Social Learning,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 4, no. 2 (1966): 211–215; and W. Mischel and J. Grusec, “Determinants of the Rehearsal and Transmission of Neutral and Aversive Behaviors,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3, no. 2 (1966): 197–205.
15. This study suggests Models also powerfully influence children’s willingness to choose larger delayed rewards rather than smaller immediate rewards. See A. Bandura and W. Mischel, “Modification of Self-Imposed Delay of Reward Through Exposure to Live and Symbolic Models,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2, no. 5 (1965): 698–705.
16. Mark Owen M. Owen with K. Maurer, No Easy Day: The First-Hand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden (New York: Dutton, 2012).
17. “these men every day” Ibid., author’s note, XI.
1. led me to a research career W. Mischel, “Walter Mischel,” in A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 9, edited by G. E. Lindzey and W. M. Runyan (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007), 229–267.
2. The unexpected finding B. S. McEwen and P. J. Gianaros, “Stress- and Allostasis-Induced Brain Plasticity,” Annual Review of Medicine 62 (2011): 431–445; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11 (2011); and M. I. Posner and M. K. Rothbart, Educating the Human Brain, Human Brain Development Series (Washington, DC: APA Books, 2007).
3. training and genetics jointly influence M. R. Rueda and others, “Training, Maturation, and Genetic Influences on the Development of Executive Attention,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, no. 41 (2005): 14931–14936.
4. Given the importance of EF A. Diamond and others, “Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control,” Science 318, no. 5855 (2007): 1387–1388; and N. R. Riggs and others, “The Mediational Role of Neurocognition in the Behavioral Outcomes of a Social-Emotional Prevention Program in Elementary School Students: Effects of the PATHS Curriculum,” Prevention Science 7, no. 1 (2006): 91–102.
5. At age 11 to 12 years C. Gawrilow, P. M. Gollwitzer, and G. Oettingen, “If-Then Plans Benefit Executive Functions in Children with ADHD,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 30, no. 6 (2011); and C. Gawrilow and others, “Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions Enhances Self-Regulation of Goal Pursuit in Schoolchildren at Risk for ADHD,” Motivation and Emotion 37, no. 1 (2013): 134–145.
6. not only improved their working memory T. Klingberg and others, “Computerized Training of Working Memory in Children with ADHD—a Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 44, no. 2 (2005): 177–186.
7. Simple meditation and mindfulness Y. Y. Tang and others, “Short-Term Meditation Training Improves Attention and Self-Regulation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 43 (2007): 17152–17156; A. P. Jha, J. Krompinger, and M. J. Baime, “Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention,” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 7, no. 2 (2007): 109–119. See also M. K. Rothbart and others, “Enhancing Self-Regulation in School and Clinic,” in Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Meeting the Challenge of Translational Research in Child Psychology, vol. 35, edited by M. R. Gunner and D. Cicchetti (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009), 115–158.
8. Mindfulness training M. D. Mrazek and others, “Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering,” Psychological Science 24, no. 5 (2013): 776–781.
9. Two of the most notable McEwen and Gianaros, “Stress- and Allostasis-Induced Brain Plasticity.”
10. “that these capacities can be improved” Center on the Developing Child, Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System, 12.
11. as one pundit put it D. Brooks, “When Families Fail,” New York Times, February 12, 2013.
12. Sesame Street sets out a challenge “Sesame Workshop”®, “Sesame Street”®, and associated characters, trademarks, and design elements are owned and licensed by Sesame Workshop. © 2013 Sesame Workshop. All rights reserved.
13. The Sesame Street education researchers S. Fisch and R. Truglio, eds., “The Early Window Project: Sesame Street Prepares Children for School,” in “G” Is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Sesame Street (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001), 97–114.
14. the “biology of disadvantage” N. E. Adler and J. Stewart, eds., The Biology of Disadvantage: Socioeconomic Status and Health (Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
15. transform public education Robin Hood Excellence Program, supported by Paul Tudor-Jones, and Michael Druckman’s Schools That Can are other examples of the many diverse efforts currently being pursued.
16. impoverished backgrounds Defined by qualifying for the free or reduced-cost lunch program.
17. “Madeline,” age ten Personal interview with KIPP student, March 14, 2013, at KIPP Academy Middle School, South Bronx, NY.
18. This compares with a rate These data are from Mischel interviews with Dave Levin, February 22, 2013, and with Mitch Brenner, April 17, 2013.
19. “If you want kids to learn” Personal communication from Dave Levin at KIPP to Mischel on December 26, 2013.
20. almost verbatim one of the qualities Y. Shoda, W. Mischel, and P. K. Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Social Competence from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions,” Developmental Psychology 26, no. 6 (1990): 978–986.
21. the earlier preschool years In some states this reflects the fact that preschool education is not funded by the state.
1. humans and animals G. Ainslie and R. J. Herrnstein, “Preference Reversal and Delayed Reinforcement,” Animal Learning and Behavior 9, no. 4 (1981): 476–482.
2. simple mathematical model D. Laibson, “Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, no. 2 (1997): 443–478.
3. If-Then implementation plans has helped P. M. Gollwitzer and G. Oettingen, “Goal Pursuit,” in The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, edited by R. M. Ryan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 208–231.
4. maintaining the change over time R. W. Jeffery and others, “Long-Term Maintenance of Weight Loss: Current Status,” Health Psychology 19, no. 1S (2000): 5–16.
5. Precommitment strategies M. J. Crockett and others, “Restricting Temptations: Neural Mechanisms of Precommitment,” Neuron 79, no. 2 (2013): 391–401.
6. strategy you want to try See for example D. Ariely and K. Wertenbroch, “Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment,” Psychological Science 13, no. 3 (2002): 219–224.
7. when the default was enrollment D. Laibson, “Psychological and Economic Voices in the Policy Debate,” presentation at Psychological Science and Behavioral Economics in the Service of Public Policy, the White House, Washington, DC, May 22, 2013. See also R. H. Thaler and C. R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New York: Penguin, 2008).
8. change in perspective alters how the experience is appraised E. Kross and others, “Asking Why from a Distance: Its Cognitive and Emotional Consequences for People with Major Depressive Disorder,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 121, no. 3 (2012): 559–569; and E. Kross and O. Ayduk, “Making Meaning out of Negative Experiences by Self-Distancing,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 20, no. 3 (2011): 187–191.
9. help with the toughest struggles B. A. Alford and A. T. Beck, The Integrative Power of Cognitive Therapy (New York: Guilford Press, 1998); and A. T. Beck and others, Cognitive Therapy of Depression (New York: Guilford Press, 1979).
10. angry voices while they are sleeping A. M. Graham, P. A. Fisher, and J. H. Pfeifer, “What Sleeping Babies Hear: A Functional MRI Study of Interparental Conflict and Infants’ Emotion Processing,” Psychological Science 24, no. 5 (2013): 782–789.
11. “He was biting” Quotes from personal communication with “Elizabeth” on August 27, 2013.
12. we’d better be careful to keep our promises L. Michaelson and others, “Delaying Gratification Depends on Social Trust,” Frontiers in Psychology 4 (2013): 355; W. Mischel, “Processes in Delay of Gratification,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by L. Berkowitz, vol. 7 (New York: Academic Press, 1974), 249–292.
13. they were left to play by themselves A. Bandura, D. Ross, and S. A. Ross, “Transmission of Aggression through Imitation of Aggressive Models,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63, no. 3 (1961): 575–582.
1. “written in our genes” Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/96056-your-future-marshmallow/.
2. A main lesson from modern science P. D. Zelazo and W. A. Cunningham, “Executive Function: Mechanisms Underlying Emotion Regulation,” in Handbook of Emotion Regulation, edited by J. J. Gross (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 135–158; and Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11 (2011).
3. Springsteen found his goal P. A. Carlin, Bruce (New York: Touchstone, 2012), 24.
4. important determinants of life satisfaction Originally published in W. G. Bowen and D. Bok, The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); and C. Nickerson, N. Schwarz, and E. Diener, “Financial Aspirations, Financial Success, and Overall Life Satisfaction: Who? And How?,” Journal of Happiness Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 467–515. For a summary of the essential findings see D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 401–402.
5. human nature is, at its core W. Mischel, “Continuity and Change in Personality,” American Psychologist 24, no. 11 (1969): 1012–1018; and W. Mischel, “Toward an Integrative Science of the Person (Prefatory Chapter),” Annual Review of Psychology 55 (2004): 1–22.
6. the life stories that we construct C. M. Morf and W. Mischel, “The Self as a Psycho-Social Dynamic Processing System: Toward a Converging Science of Selfhood,” in Handbook of Self and Identity, 2nd ed., edited by M. Leary and J. Tangney (New York: Guilford, 2012), 21–49.
7. “environments could be” D. Kaufer and D. Francis, “Nurture, Nature, and the Stress That Is Life,” in Future Science: Cutting-Edge Essays from the New Generation of Scientists, edited by M. Brockman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 63.
8. Descartes’s famous dictum R. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Part I, article 7 (1644).