[PHNUTR-L] Got sugar? Glucose affects our ability to resist temptation

[Kathrynne Holden]

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Public release date: 3-Dec-2007
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/afps-gsg120307.php

Contact: Catherine West
cwest at psychologicalscience.org
202-783-2077
Association for Psychological Science

Got sugar? Glucose affects our ability to resist temptation

New research from a lab at Florida State University reveals that 
self-control takes fuel — literally. When we exercise it, resisting 
temptations to misbehave, our fuel tank is depleted, making subsequent 
efforts at self-control more difficult.

Florida State psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and his colleagues Kathleen 
D. Vohs, University of Minnesota, and Dianne M. Tice, Florida State, 
showed this with an experiment using the Stroop task, a famous way of 
testing strength of self-control. Participants in this task are shown 
color words that are printed in different-colored ink (like the word red 
printed in blue font), and are told to name the color of the ink, not 
the word. Baumeister found that when participants perform multiple 
self-control tasks like the Stroop test in a row, they do worse over 
time. Thus, the ability to control ourselves wanes as it is exercised.

Moreover, Baumeister and colleagues found that the fuel that powers this 
ability turns out to be one of the same things that fuels our muscles: 
sugar, in the form of glucose.

The researchers measured the blood glucose levels of participants before 
either engaging in another self-control task or a task that did not 
involve self-control. They found that the group performing the 
self-control task suffered depletion in glucose afterward. Furthermore, 
in another experiment, two groups performed the Stroop task two times 
each, drinking one of two sweetened beverages in between. The control 
group drank lemonade with Splenda, a sugar-free sweetener; the test 
group got lemonade sweetened with real sugar. The sugar group performed 
better than the Splenda group on their second Stroop test, presumably 
because their blood sugar had been replenished.

The results as reported in the December issue of Current Directions in 
Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological 
Science, suggest the possibility of psychological interventions for 
helping people achieve greater self-control. For one thing, like 
muscles, self-control may be able to be strengthened through exercise. 
Results so far are inconsistent, Baumeister says, and some regimens work 
better than others, but he envisions that greater understanding of the 
biological and psychological underpinnings of our ability to control 
ourselves will have important real-world application for people in the 
self-control business, such as coaches, therapists, teachers, and parents.

###

Author Contact: Roy Baumeister baumeister at psy.fsu.edu

Current Directions in Psychological Science publishes concise reviews on 
the latest advances in theory and research spanning all of scientific 
psychology and its applications. For a copy of the article “The Strength 
Model of Self-Control” and access to other Current Directions in 
Psychological Science research findings, please contact Catherine West 
at (202) 783-2077 or cwest at psychologicalscience.org.
-- 
Kathrynne Holden, MS, RD < fivestar at nutritionucanlivewith.com >
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