Neural and Behavioral Evidence for an Intrinsic Cost of Self-Control

Wouter Kool,Gary J Wang,Joseph T Mcguire,Matthew M Botvinick,Sarah Frances Brosnan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072626

Wouter Kool, Gary J Wang + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072626

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Aug 27, 2013
Citations: 133	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

The capacity for self-control is critical to adaptive functioning, yet our knowledge of the underlying processes and mechanisms is presently only inchoate. Theoretical work in economics has suggested a model of self-control centering on two key assumptions: (1) a division within the decision-maker between two ‘selves’ with differing preferences; (2) the idea that self-control is intrinsically costly. Neuroscience has recently generated findings supporting the ‘dual-self’ assumption. The idea of self-control costs, in contrast, has remained speculative. We report the first independent evidence for self-control costs. Through a neuroimaging meta-analysis, we establish an anatomical link between self-control and the registration of cognitive effort costs. This link predicts that individuals who strongly avoid cognitive demand should also display poor self-control. To test this, we conducted a behavioral experiment leveraging a measure of demand avoidance along with two measures of self-control. The results obtained provide clear support for the idea of self-control costs.

Highlights

Human decision-makers enjoy an important, though fallible, capacity for self-control: an ability to resist immediate pleasures in favor of longer-term goals
A similar finding has come from studies of intertemporal choice (ITC), where decisions are made between tempting immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards
demand selection task (DST) performance correlated with choice behavior in the ITC task, with a greater proportion of low-demand choices in the DST predicting a smaller proportion of delayed-option ITC choices (r(48) = 20.49, p,0.001; Figure 3B)

Summary

Introduction

Human decision-makers enjoy an important, though fallible, capacity for self-control: an ability to resist immediate pleasures in favor of longer-term goals. A set of recent experiments has provided evidence that demands on executive function register as subjectively costly or aversive This evidence comes, in part, from work with the demand selection task (DST), a behavioral paradigm in which participants choose repeatedly between task options associated with differing levels of executive demand (Figure 2). DlPFC activity arising during performance of a cognitively demanding task predicted later reductions in striatal responses to rewards presented as payments for the task (Figure 1) These studies examined the cost of cognitive effort in settings quite different from those involved in the self-control research introduced earlier. The dlPFC regions from these self-control studies displayed statistically significant effort-cost effects (Table 1; see Information S1) This anatomical intersection between self-control and effort-cost effects suggests a functional connection between these two, consistent with the idea that self-control itself carries intrinsic subjective costs. We predicted that the strength of demand avoidance in the DST would correlate inversely with both measures of self-control

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