Using this approach, we find evidence for *both* impulse inhibition and dynamic competition. Notably, however, impulse inhibition occurs much less frequently (in only 26% of successful self-control decisions) and seems to be characteristic of impatient and present-focused individuals

This has been a labor of love that's been in the works for over 6 years, and I'm beyond excited to have it finally out. Preprint version available here: osf.io/preprints/ps..., and you can find all code, data, and analyses here: osf.io/y4rvj/overview

Taken together, this suggests that our theories of self-control need to go beyond a focus on inhibitory control, and further gives researchers a novel quantitative approach to analyzing choices in real time.

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Using this approach, we find evidence for *both* impulse inhibition and dynamic competition. Notably, however, impulse inhibition occurs much less frequently (in only 26% of successful self-control decisions) and seems to be characteristic of impatient and present-focused individuals

Recent work suggests mouse movements can serve as a window into the real-time evolution of choice. Here, we develop a new analytical approach that integrates the spatial and temporal information, allowing us to test whether choices are more consistent with impulse inhibition vs. dynamic competition

Until now it has been difficult to test which of these accounts better describes self-control because modern tools do not capture the real-time dynamics of choice. To address this, we measured participants' computer mouse movements as they decided between immediate and delayed gratification

In contrast, other models (built of sequential sampling models such as the drift-diffusion model) instead propose dynamic competition. These models assume no temporal precedence of temptations or goals and argue that both dynamically compete for selection from choice onset

Most models of self-control (often built off dual systems theories) have emphasized impulse inhibition. According to these models, self-control entails experiencing an automatic urge towards a temptation that must then be effortfully inhibited by slower, controlled processes (i.e., willpower)

Some friends of mine recently published a paper on this showing how dramatically people overestimate prices of consumer goods earlier in time (figures 1-3). They had a hard time getting it published due to getting the same reactions you are currently getting psycnet.apa.org/record/2024-...

Indeed,

See also: mathematicians going insane from studying infinity (possibly apocryphal)

Would also love to be added. Thank you!

I had the opposite of this for a while where I had not published in the same journal twice (I think I broke the streak with paper 15 or thereabouts). Kind of a fun fact but probably not the best career move (lack of focus etc)