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A recent study found that people who use willpower to overcome obstacles are more trustworthy than those who rely on external strategies.
According to a study published by theAmerican Psychological Associationpeople who use their willpower to overcome life challenges and achieve their goals are perceived as more trustworthy than those who use external strategies.
Will vs. external strategy
Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and relayed by Neuroscience Newsthe study was conducted on 2,800 participants in the United States, through a series of online experiments. In most of the experiments, participants were presented with a hypothetical situation involving individuals attempting to achieve a goal using willpower or an external strategy.
Overall, individuals described as using external strategies to achieve their goals were rated as less trustworthy than those who used willpower alone.
In two experiments, the researchers found that participants were more likely to view hypothetical users of external strategies as less trustworthy, even if they acknowledged that external strategies, relying on other means, were more effective than willpower alone.
Feeling good in your body, feeling good in your head!
Self-control, a key element to being trustworthy
Researchers believe that choosing to use an external strategy signals to others a deficiency in an individual’s character. In other words, people believe that those who need outside help (rather than simply relying on willpower) are more likely to have failed in the past and are therefore less able to overcome their self-control problems on their own.
“Past failures in self-control may be viewed by others as moral failures. Because morality is an important component of integrity in particular, and trustworthiness in general, people who rely on commitment strategies may be viewed as less trustworthy than those who simply rely on willpower.”said study lead author Ariella Kristal, PhD of Columbia University.