THE BUSY AND DEPLETED SYSTEM

It is now a well-established proposition that both self-control and cogni effort are forms of mental work. Several psychological studies have shr that people who are simultaneously challenged by a demanding cogn task and by a temptation are more likely to yield to the temptation. Ima that you are asked to retain a list of seven digits for a minute or two. are told that remembering the digits is your top priority. While your at tion is focused on the digits, you are offered a choice between two dess a sinful chocolate cake and a virtuous fruit salad. The evidence suggests you would be more likely to select the tempting chocolate cake when mind is loaded with digits. System 1 has more influence on behavior System 2 is busy, and it has a sweet tooth. People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make si choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social ations. Memorizing and repeating digits loosens the hold of System behavior, but of course cognitive load is not the only cause of weak self-control. A few drinks have the same effect, as does a sleepless The self-control of morning people is impaired at night; the reverse i of night people. Too much concern about how well one is doing in sometimes disrupts performance by loading short-term memory pointless anxious thoughts. The conclusion is straightforward: self-c requires attention and effort. Another way of saying this is that cont thoughts and behaviors is one of the tasks that System 2 performs. A series of surprising experiments by the psychologist Roy Baun and his colleagues has shown conclusively that all variants of vol effort--cognitive, emotional, or physical--draw at least partly on a pool of mental energy. Their experiments involve successive rathe simultaneous tasks.