Get It Done - Ayelet Fishbach

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Here are the key points from the introduction:

• Motivating yourself requires changing your circumstances and situation. This principle underlies discoveries in motivation science.

• Insights from motivation science can help guide your desires and motivate yourself, not just others.

• The four essential ingredients for successful behavior change are:

1. Choosing a goal. Mark a destination.

2. Sustaining motivation. Monitor progress, get feedback, reflect on achievements and what’s left.

3. Juggling multiple goals. Manage competing goals, set priorities, find balance.

4. Leveraging social support. Get help from others, avoid those who hinder goals.

• The book shares scientific insights into how to implement these four ingredients to self-motivate.

• Powerful goals energize us and pull us toward achieving our desires. They feel exciting, not like chores.

• To be powerful, goals should be framed as end goals, not just means to other goals. Reaching the summit of Everest is an end goal for climbers. Training for it is more of a means.

• Goals should be abstract aspirations, not too specific/concrete. Studying law is an aspiration; studying for the bar exam is more concrete.

• Goals should be framed in terms of what you wish to approach, not what you wish to avoid. Becoming a parent is approaching a desire; doing so to avoid regrets is avoiding something negative.

• Traps to avoid: framing goals as means to other goals, setting goals that are too specific/concrete, and framing goals in terms of avoiding something negative rather than approaching a desire.

• Powerful goals feel worth the effort and price tag. They pull us toward our greatest wishes. But we must set them wisely, considering if they are right for our circumstances.

• We dislike paying for means (e.g. parking, shipping) rather than ends. Companies try to hide means costs to make deals seem better.

• An experiment found people bid less for a book + tote bag than for the book alone, since the bag was seen as an unnecessary means.

• Abstract goals that focus on purpose (e.g. “find a job”) are more motivating than concrete goals about means (e.g. “apply for jobs”). But goals shouldn’t be too vague.

• Fantasizing about goals feels good but doesn’t motivate action. Optimally abstract goals connect current reality to a desired endpoint.

• “Do” goals that identify a desirable state (e.g. eat healthy) are usually more motivating than “do not” goals about avoiding something (e.g. avoid unhealthy foods).

• Trying to suppress thoughts often backfires and makes them more intrusive. Avoidance goals can work for some people in some situations but are often ineffective.

Here are the key points on putting a number on your goals:

• Putting a specific number on your goal makes it more concrete and measurable. A goal like “lose weight” is vague, while “lose 10 pounds” is specific.

• Numbers create accountability and make it easier to track progress. If your goal is to “save money” it’s hard to know if you’re making progress. But “save $5,000” allows you to calculate exactly how you’re doing.

• When choosing a number, make sure it’s realistic yet challenging. If a goal is too easy you won’t be motivated. If it’s impossible, you’ll get discouraged. Pick a number that pushes you but is doable.

• Break big numbers down into smaller milestones. Trying to lose 50 pounds is daunting. Aim first for losing 5 pounds, then set the next milestone.

• Numbers should be personalized to your circumstances. Don’t just pick a number others use. Choose one customized to your needs and abilities.

• Putting a number on your goal forces you to get specific about what it will take to achieve it. If you want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, you’ll need to train to run a certain time.

• Share your numeric goal with others to increase commitment. Accountability to others helps drive us.

In summary, putting a quantifiable number on your goals makes them more concrete, accountable, and motivating. Choose numbers wisely based on your unique situation.

• Numerical targets (e.g. save $10,000) are a common and effective tool for motivation. They pull us toward a goal and help us monitor progress.

• Once a target is set, we are highly motivated to meet it exactly because falling short feels like a loss. Going above the target feels less rewarding. This illustrates the principle of loss aversion.

• Targets are effective motivators because they help us evaluate our progress through a process of testing and operating. We test how far we still need to go, then take action to get closer to the target.

• Good targets are challenging, measurable, actionable, and self-set. We tend to set optimistic targets to motivate ourselves to achieve more.

• The planning fallacy causes us to underestimate how long tasks will take. But we also strategically set optimistic targets to challenge ourselves.

• Overall, numerical targets motivate us by pulling us toward them. We work hard to avoid the disappointment of falling short.

• People often set early deadlines to motivate themselves to start working sooner. In a study, students who expected a difficult assignment and set earlier deadlines finished earlier than those who expected an easy assignment.

• Setting challenging but achievable targets motivates people because it causes them to recruit mental and physical resources to meet the challenge.

• Targets should be measurable with a clear, easy to understand number that allows progress to be monitored.

• Targets should be actionable - they need to be easily translated into concrete actions. Calorie counts are not very actionable, but counting daily allowance percentages or exercise equivalents makes healthy eating more actionable.

• It’s best to set your own targets rather than letting others set them for you. This increases commitment and avoids reactance where you resist just because someone else demanded the target.

Here are a few key points on how incentives can help motivate goal achievement:

• Incentives like rewards and punishments can add a tangible, immediate motivation to keep working towards a long-term goal. A small reward like a coffee or snack can help incentivize completing a work task.

• Though often studied in the context of motivating others, self-set incentives can also be a useful self-motivation tool. You can reward yourself or set up a punishment to avoid in order to stay focused on your goal.

• When designing an incentive system, it’s important to ensure the rewards or punishments accurately reflect the behavior you want to motivate. The incentives should be proportional and timely.

• Extrinsic incentives like money or prizes can sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation over the long-term. Make sure extrinsic rewards don’t distract from the inherent satisfaction of reaching the goal itself.

• Be wary of incentives that could motivate unwanted or unethical behaviors, like the sales targets at Wells Fargo that pressured employees into illegally opening accounts. Incentives should motivate positive progress towards an appropriate goal.

• Consider opting into existing incentive structures like savings account interest or charity fundraising that align with your own goals. Or devise self-incentives like taking a break after completing a task.

• Incentives are most effective when used thoughtfully and sparingly. Make sure they don’t become the sole motivator or overshadow the end goal.

• Radical behaviorists believed that human behavior could be fully explained and predicted by understanding a person’s history of incentives and rewards. Though modern psychologists no longer subscribe to this view, research on incentives stems from behaviorism.

• Behaviorists showed that modifying the situation, not the person’s personality, can change behavior. Incentives accordingly modify the situation.

• Economists have generated empirical data on how monetary incentives influence behavior. Behavioral economics found that incentives sometimes fail to motivate.

• Incentives only work if you reward the right thing. Rewarding the wrong behaviors can backfire.

• Having too many incentives can undermine motivation via the overjustification effect. Introducing then removing an incentive makes people less intrinsically motivated.

• Variable, uncertain rewards are more motivating than predictable ones. Gambling taps into this.

• Social rewards like recognition can be effective motivators by satisfying our need for status.

• Inner motivators like purpose and autonomy boost performance more than outer incentives. But outer and inner motivators work best together.

In sum, well-designed incentives require rewarding the right behaviors, in moderation, and aligning outer incentives with inner motivational needs.

• Mark Lepper conducted a study in the 1970s where children were given art activities to do. Some were offered an award for their art, while others were not. Later, when the awards were removed, the children who had originally been offered awards were less motivated to continue the art activities. This demonstrated the “overjustification effect” where added external incentives can reduce internal motivation.

• However, newer studies show that motivation doesn’t only decrease when incentives are removed - adding incentives can reduce motivation even when they remain in place.

• For example, telling preschoolers that eating carrots will help them learn to read decreased their desire to eat carrots, even though the incentive remained. And emphasizing the health benefits of food decreases consumption in cafeterias.

• This occurs due to the “dilution principle” - adding new goals or incentives to an activity dilutes the association with the original goal. The activity seems less beneficial for the original purpose.

• An incentive you don’t care about dilutes motivation more than one you do care about. For example, tax breaks for your employer dilute personal motivation for a recycling program.

• The principle explains why multipurpose tools often go unused - we prefer items that serve one clear purpose.

• Incentives can backfire when they dilute the original purpose of an activity. Before adding incentives, consider whether they will support or overshadow your original goal.

• Incentives can sometimes obscure people’s true motivations and goals. Children in particular may misattribute their motivation to an external incentive rather than their inherent enjoyment.

• However, for adults who already know their motivations well, incentives tend to increase, not decrease, motivation for an activity.

• Incentives can also obscure the true impact of an action. Removing a negative incentive like legal punishment may make a bad action seem more acceptable.

• Similarly, positive incentives like tax breaks may overshadow the inherent purpose and impact of an action like charitable giving.

• It’s important to consider how incentives shape perspectives on goals and impacts. Ask yourself - would I still want to do this without the incentive?

• Uncertain or variable incentives can sometimes increase motivation more than predictable ones, by keeping people hopeful of a possible reward.

• The key is to be mindful of how incentives influence perspectives, and design them carefully to align with rather than obstruct goals and values.

Here is a summary of the key points about intrinsic motivation:

• Intrinsic motivation is pursuing an activity because it is enjoyable and rewarding in itself, not for any external reward. It’s doing something for the pure satisfaction of doing it.

• Intrinsic motivation is the best predictor of engagement and success in goals and activities. When something is intrinsically rewarding, we are more likely to stick with it.

• Making goals and activities more intrinsically motivating by increasing enjoyment and excitement leads to greater follow-through.

• Even goals that aren’t inherently fun can be made more intrinsically motivating by finding ways to make the process more enjoyable. This leads to more persistence.

• Importance of a goal does not predict adherence as much as intrinsic motivation does. We are more likely to stick to goals that excite us intrinsically versus those we think are important.

• Harnessing intrinsic motivation is key for goal success, whether it’s exercise, work, hobbies, or any other goal. Finding ways to increase enjoyment and excitement of the process makes goals easier to stick to.

• Intrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity for its own sake rather than as a means to an end. The more an activity feels like an end in itself, the more intrinsically motivated you are to do it.

• Intrinsically motivated activities tend to fuse the activity (means) and the goal (end). For example, watching fireworks is done for the sake of watching fireworks.

• Extrinsically motivated activities are done as a step towards some other goal. For example, exercising for long-term health benefits.

• Factors that increase intrinsic motivation include:

• When an activity immediately achieves a rewarding goal, even if that wasn’t the original goal (e.g. feeling energized during/after exercising)

• When there is a one-to-one link between the activity and the goal it achieves

• When the activity and its associated goal are similar or overlap conceptually

• Intrinsic motivation is not limited to:

• Resolving curiosity

• Innate/biological motives like relationships and competence

• Signs of intrinsic motivation include feeling eager, enjoying the activity, and not wanting to quit.

Here is a summary of the key points about how to increase intrinsic motivation:

• Make activities more fun and enjoyable through “temptation bundling” - pairing them with something tempting you only allow yourself while doing the activity. This harnesses instant gratification to make the activity itself more rewarding.

• Find activities that are fun paths to your goal. Choosing workouts you enjoy leads to 50% more effort compared to ones thought most effective but less enjoyable.

• Notice and focus on the enjoyable parts of an activity. People ate 50% more carrots when choosing the tastier looking bag over the healthier looking one.

• Shorten the time between an activity and reaching the goal to increase intrinsic motivation. External rewards also work better when given immediately after an activity.

• For very unpleasant but time-limited activities, just focus on getting through them rather than trying to make them fun. Intrinsic motivation isn’t required for persistence.

• Myths persist that others don’t care as much about intrinsic motivation and that we’ll care less in the future. But awareness of these myths helps us connect better to others and set more achievable goals.

• We tend to see ourselves as more intrinsically motivated than others. This “better-than-average” effect is particularly strong when it comes to intrinsic motivation like learning, enjoyment, and meaning.

• We fail to appreciate how much intrinsic motivation matters to other people. This can undermine relationships at work and at home.

• We also underestimate how much intrinsic motivation will matter to our future selves. This causes us to make decisions we later regret.

• To overcome this, try to have more empathy and imagine how much intrinsic motivation matters from others’ perspectives. Also, make decisions for your future self in a similar state of mind to when you’ll execute them.

• Focusing on intrinsic motivators like enjoyment and meaning will help you persist and excel in your goals. Remind yourself that you and others likely care more about intrinsic motivation than you realize.

• Ask yourself questions like how you can make a goal more fun and immediately rewarding. This will lead to wiser goal setting and behavior.

• Progress is a powerful motivator. The more progress you make toward a goal, the more motivated you become to keep pursuing it. This is known as the “goal gradient effect.”

• Where you are on the timeline of a goal affects your motivation. People are most likely to quit when they have made the least progress, like first-year college students who drop out. Those who have made more progress are more motivated to continue.

• Progress makes each action feel more impactful. As you get closer to a goal, each step seems to have a bigger impact, like filling in more slots on a loyalty card. Even illusory progress can increase motivation.

• Pursuing a goal also increases commitment to it. We tend to value goals more highly after investing time and effort in them.

• To stay motivated, it’s important to monitor your progress and break long-term goals into smaller subgoals. This helps you recognize your progress and feel the growing impact of each action.

• Strategically framing progress is also key - focusing on how much you have left to do versus how far you’ve come can affect your motivation.

• All-or-nothing goals (like graduating college) are highly motivating as you get closer to completion because the reward is conditional on reaching the goal. In contrast, with accumulative goals (like exercising regularly) you gain benefits incrementally, so progress is less motivating.

• Even without making progress, just pursuing a goal can increase motivation and commitment through the sunk-cost fallacy - we feel compelled to persist with something we’ve already invested time or effort into. This signals that the goal has value.

• Engagement with a goal suggests it is valuable and achievable, building commitment. Cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory argue we adapt our attitudes and beliefs to match our actions.

• So pursuing a goal, even without progress, can generate motivation through increased commitment. We convince ourselves the goal is worthwhile and attainable based on our previous goal-directed actions.

Here are the key points about how progress and lack of progress can influence motivation:

• Progress generally helps sustain motivation, but sometimes lack of progress can be even more motivating.

• Focusing on how much progress you’ve already made can increase your commitment and motivation to continue pursuing a goal.

• When a goal is highly important, focusing on how much progress you still need to make can be more motivating than thinking about what you’ve already accomplished.

• Emotions serve as signals of progress or lack of progress. Feeling good suggests you’re ahead of where you expected to be. Feeling bad signals you’re behind where you expected you’d be.

• For approach goals, positive emotions indicate faster than expected progress, while negative emotions suggest slower progress. For avoidance goals, relief suggests faster progress in avoiding an undesirable outcome.

• Your feelings aren’t based on the absolute distance to your goal, but on the difference between your actual and expected rate of progress at any given point.

Here are the key points about the dynamics of goal motivation:

• Commitment promotes consistency: When we feel committed to a goal, each action toward the goal increases commitment and motivates similar actions. Success builds momentum.

• Progress promotes balancing: Motivation comes from lack of progress. When progress is made, motivation decreases and people “balance” by shifting attention to other goals or taking a break. Motivation returns after slacking off.

• Different motivation theories assume people follow either consistency or balancing.

• Consistency theories say to focus on past progress and successes, which increases commitment and motivation.

• Balancing theories say to focus on what’s left to be done, which increases motivation from lack of progress.

• The right approach depends on the person and situation. Progress monitoring should match the predominant dynamic.

• Social groups also differ, with some promoting consistency (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous) and others allowing balancing (e.g. Weight Watchers).

The key is to understand both dynamics and choose progress monitoring strategies that align with the predominant tendency. Matching approach to dynamic sustains motivation most effectively.

• There are two dynamics of goal motivation - consistency (like alcoholics pursuing sobriety) and balancing (like dieters allowing some splurging). Religious ideologies also differ in their prescribed dynamics.

• Completed actions increase motivation by signaling commitment to the goal. Missing actions increase motivation by signaling the need for progress. This was demonstrated in studies of people waiting in lines.

• Looking back at progress increases satisfaction with the current position. Looking ahead to what’s not yet achieved increases ambition and desire for change. This influences career aspirations and was shown in a study with employees reflecting on achievements vs ambitions.

• People focused on missing actions tend to be more intrinsically ambitious and aspire to move up. People reporting progress in terms of completed actions tend to be more satisfied with their current position.

• Whether focusing on completed or missing actions changes how people represent their actions, which in turn impacts motivation and goal pursuit.

The key distinction is between consistency versus balancing dynamics and between focusing on completed versus missing actions. The former impacts satisfaction and ambition while the latter impacts motivation and goal representation.

• Motivation often decreases in the middle stages of pursuing a goal. This “middle slump” is common as initial excitement fades before the satisfaction of completing the goal is reached.

• To combat the middle slump, focus on the meaning and purpose behind the goal. Connect the goal to your core values and sense of identity.

• Break the goal down into smaller milestones to give a sense of progress. Celebrate these smaller wins.

• Introduce variety and fun into the process. Find ways to engage different skills and social connections.

• Reflect on how far you’ve come and what you’ve learned, not just what is left to accomplish. This highlights progress made so far.

• Consider if the goal needs adjustment based on new information, while staying committed to the overall purpose. Some flexibility prevents stagnation.

• Enlist others to provide support and accountability during this challenging middle stage. Peer groups can renew momentum.

• Visualize successfully completing the goal. Keep the end reward in mind to push through the middle slump.

The key is to renew your purpose, celebrate progress, add variety, get support, and keep the end goal in sight to maintain motivation during the middle stage.

The beginning and end of goal pursuit tend to be celebrated with parties and events, while the long middle part usually passes without fanfare. Motivation and enthusiasm are highest at the start, decline during the middle, and increase again as the end draws near. The motivation to get something done differs from the motivation to do it right - taking the proper time and care to uphold standards. Doing it right signals positive traits about yourself to others and yourself.

In the middle of pursuing a goal, it’s easier for actions to go unnoticed by others and even yourself. People tend to remember beginnings and endings better than middles. Knowing the middle will be forgotten, people are more likely to relax standards and “cut corners” in the middle while maintaining higher motivation at the start and end. To keep motivation and ethics high even during long goal middles, we should find ways to make actions more visible and memorable to ourselves and others.

• In an experiment, people cut corners and made sloppier shapes when they were in the middle of a project of cutting out identical shapes. This demonstrates that people tend to lower standards or “cut corners” in the middle of goal pursuit.

• In another experiment, people were more likely to cheat and take the easier task when proofreading passages halfway through versus at the beginning or end. This further shows that ethical standards slip in the middle.

• There is a similar pattern with religious rituals like lighting the Hanukkah menorah - people are more likely to skip days in the middle than the first or last day.

• For goals with progress-based motivation, motivation is highest at the beginning when progress seems fastest. For goals with end-based motivation, motivation peaks as the end nears.

• In the middle, motivation dips because progress seems small whether you compare to what you’ve done or have left. This is the “small-area principle.”

• To sustain motivation, look back at progress made until the midpoint, then look ahead to what’s left after the midpoint.

• Keep middles short by setting smaller goals with closer ends rather than long-term goals. Frame goals with short middles like weekly rather than yearly.

Here are some key tips for learning from negative feedback:

• Motivation is key. Don’t let negative feedback demotivate you. Remind yourself that setbacks are opportunities to improve. Stay determined to learn from the experience.

• Pay close attention. When receiving negative feedback, fight the urge to tune out. Listen carefully and try to understand the criticism objectively.

• Ask clarifying questions. If the feedback is vague or you’re unsure what specifically you should improve, ask for more details. Make sure you fully grasp what went wrong.

• Reframe failures. Don’t see them as reflections on your abilities or self-worth. View them simply as indicators that your strategy or execution needs adjustment.

• Focus on the behavior or process, not yourself. Criticize your actions, not your character. Say “I did that badly” rather than “I am bad.”

• Mine the feedback. Negative feedback often provides more useful lessons than praise. Analyze it to extract concrete takeaways for improvement.

• Review the experience. Reflect on what exactly led to the failure. Replay the events in your mind and consider alternative approaches.

• Implement changes. Use the insights gleaned to make specific, tangible changes in your preparation, strategies, skills, or behaviors.

• Track improvement. Look for opportunities to implement what you’ve learned. Monitor your progress to see if the changes are working.

The key is to stay motivated, pay close attention, extract lessons, and use negative feedback productively as fuel for growth rather than as a judgment on your worth.

• Humans have a tendency called the “ostrich effect” where we avoid information that we think will make us feel bad, even if that information could help us make better decisions. For example, avoiding going to the doctor when you suspect you may get bad news.

• Negative feedback can undermine learning because it damages self-esteem. We tend to learn better from others’ failures rather than our own (“vicarious learning”) since others’ failures don’t threaten our ego.

• Learning from failure requires “mental gymnastics” - figuring out the right action by eliminating the wrong ones. This is more difficult than learning from success which just requires repeating the right action.

• We suffer from “confirmation bias” where we selectively pay attention to information that confirms our expectations of success and ignore disconfirming information. Failures often catch us by surprise.

• The environment matters - if failures are rare, they contain more useful information. Also, avoiding a terrible outcome is more important than achieving an amazing one.

• Two key strategies are: 1) Protect your ego by viewing failures as learning opportunities 2) Seek out and pay attention to failures, not just successes, as they often provide more useful information.

• Experiments by psychologist Martin Seligman showed that animals and humans can develop “learned helplessness” after repeated exposure to negative events they cannot control. This makes them passively accept negative outcomes rather than trying to avoid them.

• Negative feedback can cause people to either give up on a goal (due to reduced commitment) or work harder (due to perceiving a lack of progress). How we interpret the feedback determines its effect on motivation.

• People with a “growth mindset” believe abilities can be developed through practice. They are more likely to interpret negative feedback as a sign to work harder. People with a “fixed mindset” believe abilities are static, so negative feedback signals low ability.

• Highly committed people are less likely to doubt their commitment after negative feedback. Experts are also less shaken by failures and see negative feedback as a sign to increase effort. Their experience gives them confidence in their abilities.

• Negative feedback provides useful information to committed, experienced people. It can actually increase their motivation rather than discourage them.

Here is a summary of the expert’s motivation in the provided passage:

The expert’s main motivation is to explain how commitment to a goal and expertise in a domain shape how people respond to negative feedback. Specifically:

• Novices tend to lose motivation and commitment when faced with negative feedback because it threatens their confidence. Experts, on the other hand, are more open to negative feedback because their commitment and confidence are stronger.

• Negative feedback provides useful information for experts to improve. For novice learners, most feedback will be positive as they are still learning the basics. Rare negative feedback stands out and is more informative for experts.

• Committed experts actually seek more negative feedback than novices. Their greater confidence allows them to view negative feedback as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than as a threat.

• The expert aims to provide research-based insights into how to sustain motivation when faced with setbacks and failure. Strategies include framing failures as opportunities to learn, adopting a growth mindset, distancing oneself from the failure, and giving advice to others.

In summary, the passage explores how commitment level and expertise shape reactions to negative feedback, with the goal of explaining how we can stay motivated despite mistakes or failures. The expert uses research evidence to shed light on this important motivational issue.

• We hear more about successes than failures, even when failures are equally or more common. This “asymmetry of information” is likely due to a human tendency to hide failures and present ourselves in a positive light.

• Failures often contain superior information compared to successes. Negative information tends to be more unique and elaborated on than positive information.

• The diversity of ways in which things can go wrong is greater than the ways they can go right. Mistakes and failures are often unique, while success strategies tend to be similar.

• We elaborate more on negative experiences because they violate our expectations. Good outcomes require no explanation, but bad ones compel us to make sense of them.

• As a result, negative information, though rare, is often more detailed. Reviews of unsuccessful products or services, for example, tend to be longer and more descriptive than positive reviews.

• This asymmetry means that by sharing failures and negative experiences, we can learn more useful information about how to achieve goals than by only sharing successes.

Here is a summary of the key points about managing multiple goals from the passage:

• People inevitably have multiple goals at once. Completely focusing on just one goal at a time is unrealistic.

• Our goals are organized into a “goal system” where each goal has subgoals or means to achieve it, and contributes to higher-level, more abstract goals.

• Goals can facilitate or inhibit each other. When goals conflict, we have to prioritize some over others or find compromises.

• We choose actions according to the principle of “maximizing attainment” - trying to make progress on multiple goals while minimizing negative impacts on other goals.

• Goals are organized hierarchically from abstract to concrete. The most concrete goals serve as means to more abstract higher-order goals.

• Some means can serve multiple goals simultaneously (“multifinal” means). Finding these efficient means helps manage multiple goals.

• Balancing goals sometimes involves doing a bit of each one. But we sometimes have to focus on one goal while ignoring others that conflict with it.

• Managing competing goals well involves assessing how they facilitate or inhibit each other and picking the right battles to focus on at the right times.

• Pandas enjoy eating bamboo more than humans enjoy anything, because bamboo fully satisfies pandas’ hunger goal. In contrast, humans have many food options that serve additional goals beyond hunger, so no single food fully satisfies us.

• Having multiple ways to achieve a goal (equifinal means) or having one means achieve multiple goals (multifinal means) dilutes the strength of association between that means and each goal. This makes the means seem less “right” for achieving any one goal.

• People often prefer “unifinal” means that serve just one goal, because the association is stronger. Multifinal means are rejected if the extra benefits don’t provide personal utility.

• People also irrationally assume that something that undermines one goal must be better for another goal (“no pain, no gain”). For example, mouthwash that burns may seem more effective, even if it isn’t.

• Teenagers often make self-destructive choices like smoking to show independence. The pain demonstrates commitment to the goal of independence from parents/society.

• In general, simple unifinal means tend to feel more “right” psychologically, even if logically multifinal means could achieve more goals. The dilution effect makes multifinal options seem less effective for each goal.

• People sometimes engage in harmful behaviors like self-harm or joining extremist groups because it helps them fit in and achieve a sense of belonging with a particular social group. Even though these behaviors undermine other goals like being healthy and safe, the need for belonging and significance can override those concerns.

• When pursuing multiple goals that conflict, there are two main approaches: compromising and prioritizing. Compromising means striking a balance between opposing goals so you make some progress on both. Prioritizing means focusing on one goal while neglecting the others.

• We tend to compromise when we feel we’ve made sufficient progress on a goal that we can relax our efforts. But this can sometimes lead to “licensing behavior” where we use goal progress to excuse inconsistent actions.

• We also compromise when we seek variety, like choosing a mix of snacks instead of the same one every time. The “compromise effect” refers to preferring moderate options that partially satisfy different goals.

• We tend to prioritize when we want our actions to demonstrate commitment to a goal. Cues that make a choice reflect on our identity also lead us to prioritize to send a clear signal about who we are.

• Choosing to compromise versus prioritize depends on whether we see the choice reflecting our identity, how much variety we seek, and whether we’ve made sufficient progress to relax goal efforts. Both approaches have tradeoffs in pursuing conflicting goals.

Here is a summary of the key points about self-control from the chapter:

• Self-control involves overcoming momentary temptations and desires in order to stick with important long-term goals. It requires choosing what you ought to do over what you want to do.

• Exercising self-control is difficult because desires can be powerful, even addictive. People experience desires about half the time they are awake.

• Willpower theories suggest self-control is like a muscle - it fatigues with use but can be strengthened over time. Research shows simple acts of self-control can improve overall self-control ability.

• Setting clear goals, forming habits, and avoiding temptation are strategies that help preserve willpower and make self-control easier.

• Self-control failures are common. A non-judgmental, problem-solving mindset helps people recover and get back on track after lapses.

• Balance is important. Rigid self-control has costs, while flexible control recognizes occasional indulgences serve emotional needs.

In summary, self-control involves making choices aligned with values and goals rather than momentary temptations. It is a learnable skill that can be strengthened over time through practice and the use of supportive strategies. A resilient, balanced approach helps people maintain self-control and progress toward their important aims.

• Self-control is needed when there is a clear conflict between what you want to do (temptation) and what you should do to achieve your goals. It is not needed for difficult decisions where both options have merit.

• Self-control improves as we mature from childhood to adulthood. The brain regions involved in self-control take time to fully develop.

• Using self-control involves two steps: 1) detecting when a temptation conflicts with your goals, and 2) battling the temptation to align your behavior with your goals.

• Detecting temptations can be tricky because a single indulgence often seems harmless. We may not see minor ethical violations as temptations either if we believe “everyone does them.”

• To identify a self-control conflict, the behavior must either be seen as conflicting with a goal, or be considered unethical based on your principles.

• Once a temptation is detected, behavioral science offers strategies to help battle temptation and strengthen self-control.

• Detecting temptation is easier if you consider the cumulative impact of giving in, rather than looking at each instance in isolation. For example, taking office supplies may seem trivial, but can add up over time.

• Using a “broad decision frame” and considering multiple occasions rather than just one instance makes it easier to resist temptation. Setting rules that apply across situations is an example of using a broad frame.

• Be wary of justifying today’s indulgence with promises of virtuous behavior tomorrow - tomorrow never actually arrives.

• Separating temptations from goals makes it easier to detect self-control conflicts. Mixing temptations with goals can obscure that a conflict exists.

• Envisioning your future self and long-term aspirations helps you take a broad view and resist temptation in the present. Feeling connected to your future self makes you care more about that person’s welfare.

• Identifying a self-control conflict is the first step. When a choice threatens your goal, pay attention to detect the temptation.

• Certain situations make it easier to detect temptation, like when an event seems to change your identity or undermine your sense of self. For example, some see marriage as an identity-changing event and may be more tempted to cheat beforehand.

• Actions that define your identity are easiest to steer clear of temptation for. Signing documents attaches your identity so you’re less likely to lie.

• It’s hard to resist temptation when giving in is consistent with your identity but the goal is not. For example, some don’t see healthy eating as part of their identity.

• Exercising self-control counteracts temptation by increasing motivation for the goal or decreasing motivation for the temptation. Stronger temptations require more self-control.

• You need to accurately estimate the strength of temptations to prepare sufficient self-control. Unexpected temptations are hardest to resist.

• Overall, identifying self-control conflicts and being prepared to exercise self-control are key to battling temptation. Your identity and expectations determine how much self-control is needed.

• There are two main categories of self-control strategies: those that change the situation itself and those that change how we think about the situation.

• Strategies that change the situation include pre-commitment (eliminating temptations ahead of time) and imposing penalties/rewards (making it costly to give in to temptation and rewarding goal achievement).

• Pre-commitment works by eliminating tempting options or tying yourself to a position. Penalties/rewards increase the appeal of goals and decrease the appeal of temptations.

• Strategies that change mindset include mentally bolstering the appeal of goals and diminishing the appeal of temptations. This is a “softer” strategy that maintains flexibility.

• People tend to devalue available temptations more than unavailable ones when exercising self-control. As a result, temptations appear less tempting after making a choice to resist them.

• The key distinction is between strategies that change the external situation versus those that change your internal mindset. Both can help overcome self-control challenges.

• Exercising self-control is effortful and depleting, making it harder to resist temptation when exhausted. It’s best to make decisions requiring self-control when your willpower is strongest.

• Though it feels conscious, much self-control operates unconsciously through automatic evaluations and associations that favor goals over temptations.

• People unconsciously glorify goals and denigrate temptations, bring goals to mind when encountering temptations, and steer themselves toward goals and away from temptations.

• With practice, self-control becomes more automatic and habitual, requiring less conscious effort. The right cues can trigger self-control without explicitly willing it.

Here is a summary of the key points about patience:

• Waiting and being patient is difficult because it requires giving up something smaller and sooner for something bigger but later. It requires self-control.

• Research like the marshmallow test shows that the ability to delay gratification and be patient at a young age predicts positive outcomes later in life, such as better grades and more friends.

• Waiting is hard because humans are wired to discount the future - we value things more in the present compared to the future. We have high “discount rates.”

• Factors that contribute to impatience include limited self-control, poverty, stress, loneliness, and culture. Strategies to increase patience include distraction, reframing the situation, pre-commitment, and self-talk.

• Patience enables success because it allows us to pursue long-term goals, resist temptation, and make wiser financial decisions. Patient people are better able to cope with negative emotions as well.

• To be more patient, it’s important to be self-aware about our tendencies and proactively put strategies in place. Planning ahead and forming habits can also help. Ultimately, patience is a skill that can be learned and improved over time.

• Apple’s strategy of building anticipation for new products led to the creation of rumor sites like MacRumors that reveal details early to impatient tech fans. This shows that the longer the wait, the more value people assign to a product, but waiting is hard.

• Three factors make people impatient:

1. Lack of willpower - People with less self-control are less able to wait. Cognitive ability also matters, as smart decision-making helps people see the benefits of waiting.

2. Lack of trust - Not trusting that waiting will pay off reduces patience over time. If you don’t trust others to deliver, you give up sooner.

3. Lack of care - The more you care about something, the more patience you have to wait for a better version. But the wait is more agonizing.

• Having substitutes reduces impatience because you care less about the original item.

• People are also impatient to resolve debts and get them off their mind, even if it means overpaying now.

Here are some key strategies for increasing patience:

• Distraction - Focus your attention elsewhere to take your mind off the wait. Stay busy with other tasks.

• Precommitment - Make decisions in advance, when outcomes are further away. We tend to be more patient for future events vs immediate ones.

• Wait to choose - Postpone making a decision until after you’ve had time to deliberate. This allows you to better appreciate the benefits of waiting.

• Address causes - If impatience stems from lack of self-control, focus on strengthening willpower. If it’s from distrust, work on building trust.

• Practice patience - Put yourself in situations that require patience, like waiting in line without getting frustrated. The more you practice, the better you get.

• Perspective - Remind yourself that life is long, and this short wait is insignificant in the grand scheme. Adopt a big picture view.

• Presence - Stay focused on the present moment rather than getting ahead of yourself. Mindfulness can help.

• Reward - Promise yourself a reward for patience. Visualize the gratification that waiting will bring.

• Social support - Surround yourself with patient role models who can encourage patience in you. Their example can be motivating.

• Social support from others is critical for helping us stay motivated and achieve our goals, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear.

• Humans are programmed to work together toward shared goals. Our ability to coordinate and support each other is being tested during this crisis.

• The skills we develop now could potentially help us tackle other global challenges like climate change.

• Others’ presence motivates us through role modeling and expectations. We also provide each other direct assistance.

• Features like paying attention to others, seeking their company, and cooperating make us effective at joint pursuits.

• Understanding how to optimally work together is key. Pursuing goals alongside others is different from pursuing shared goals.

• Implications extend to motivating children, leading effective groups, and even improving society by coordinating large-scale cooperation.

In summary, working with others amplifies our motivation through role modeling, assistance, coordination, and shared purpose. Developing these skills now may allow us to cooperate better in the future.

Here is a summary of the key points about how the presence of others influences our motivational system:

• We perceive psychological “overlap” or interconnectedness with close others, making it difficult to distinguish between their actions/achievements and our own.

• This overlap causes us to conform to others’ preferences and behaviors, either through compliance/obedience or genuine acceptance. We assume others have useful information, so we internalize their goals.

• Conformity can be normative - we outwardly agree to gain social benefits, even if we don’t agree inwardly. Or it can be informational - we assume others know best, so we adopt their judgments.

• A key reason for conformity is that we don’t hold clear boundaries between ourselves and close others. We think “we” instead of “they”. Their goals become our goals.

• Overall, the presence of others, especially close others, powerfully shapes our own motivation through this psychological overlap and resulting conformity. We adopt others’ preferences and pursue parallel goals, whether consciously or unconsciously.

• We tend to conform more to those we feel close to, forming a “shared reality” where we adopt similar viewpoints and goals.

• But conformity sometimes turns into complementarity, where we seek actions that complement rather than mimic others. This happens when overlap would be undesirable, like fighting over a toy or wearing the same outfit.

• We conform more to others’ stated ideas and goals, but complement their actions. If others say something is important, we adopt that goal too. But if others act, we may do something different to complement them.

• Role models inspire us because we feel psychological overlap with them. We want to be like them. Anti-role models motivate us to distinguish ourselves from their undesirable qualities.

• The reason for nonconformity influences how we diverge. If motivated by uniqueness, we may just oppose others. If trying to complement others, we may dissent in a more fitting way, like playing devil’s advocate.

• Social loafing refers to the tendency for people to reduce their individual effort when working in a group compared to working alone. This happens because individual contributions are less visible in a group setting.

• Free riding is similar to social loafing, but involves strategically avoiding contributing while still reaping the rewards of the group effort.

• To combat social loafing and free riding, individual contributions need to be made more visible. Crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe do this by showing each donor’s name and contribution amount publicly.

• When people’s identities and contributions are visible to the group, they are more motivated to put in effort. Accountability and evaluation pressures increase motivation.

• Making individual responsibilities clear also helps. When people have well-defined roles, it removes the temptation to rely on others to pick up the slack.

• Fostering group cohesion and pride in the collective effort can further reduce social loafing. People work harder when they feel part of a united group working toward a shared goal.

In summary, social loafing and free riding can be reduced by increasing the visibility of individual contributions, defining clear responsibilities, and promoting group identity and cohesion. When people feel accountable and connected to the group effort, they are more motivated to fully contribute.

• Social loafing refers to people putting in less effort when working in groups compared to working alone. This can be due to feeling less accountable and that your contribution is a “drop in the bucket”.

• However, relaxing effort in groups is not always due to selfishness - it can be a way to coordinate and divide responsibilities efficiently.

• Couples tend to naturally divide household responsibilities in a complementary way, allowing each person to specialize. This can be efficient but can also lead to one partner becoming less knowledgeable about certain domains.

• Other coordination strategies like turn-taking can also be beneficial for group productivity. The key is to distinguish when relaxing effort is due to selfish motivations versus trying to coordinate effectively.

• Potential solutions to reduce selfish social loafing include increasing accountability (e.g. attaching names to contributions), breaking large groups into smaller teams, and enabling people to make unique, personal contributions.

• In close relationships, people are more willing to take resources from each other in a way that maximizes total benefits for the group, even if it means one person gains more than the other loses. This “friendly taking” stems from a focus on collective welfare rather than selfishness.

• People who are less committed to a group goal are more motivated to contribute when others have already contributed, signaling the goal’s importance. In contrast, highly committed people are more motivated when others haven’t contributed, allowing them to compensate.

• The tendency to focus on total group benefits also explains why people may neglect to properly credit others’ ideas, rationalize copyright infringement, or make unequal financial arrangements in relationships if it maximizes joint income.

• While maximizing group benefits can seem efficient, it can also lead to unfair outcomes. The downside is that what’s better for the whole may be worse for individuals.

Here are the key points from the passage:

• Relationships are successful when both people feel they are getting support from the other person and are able to provide support in return.

• We gravitate toward and strengthen bonds with people who facilitate our goals and ambitions. We drift away from those who hinder our goals.

• Shared goals make it easier to support each other in a relationship. Friends often have similar goals and therefore encourage each other.

• In romantic relationships, partners shape their goals around each other, taking on shared goals. This goal alignment helps the relationship.

• Over time, as goals change, relationships can weaken if partners are unable to adapt and support each other’s new goals.

• To maintain strong relationships as goals evolve, partners need to communicate their changing goals and find ways to facilitate each other’s ambitions. Accepting influence from your partner is key.

• Ultimately, relationships are about connecting with people who help you achieve what you want in life. Supporting each other’s goals is what makes relationships last.

• Our friends and relationships tend to support the goals we have at different stages of life. In high school, friends support looking cool and fashionable. At work, friends support career goals like hard work and honesty.

• As we grow and our goals change, some friendships fade while new ones that better align with our goals may form. This is natural as interests change over time.

• Supportive relationships encourage us to stick to our goals and push us when we are falling behind. They provide resources to help us succeed.

• We feel closer to people who can help us achieve a goal when that goal is a high priority. Once the goal progresses, we may feel less close.

• Appreciation for someone peaks before they help us, not after. We are most grateful when we need their help.

• Marie and Pierre Curie connected through shared intellectual and scientific goals. They supported each other’s work and won a Nobel Prize together.

• We connect through having similar goals, supporting each other’s goals, and pursuing shared goals together. Working toward a common goal bonds people.

• People connect through sharing goals and helping each other achieve them. Couples, families, and organizations can develop “joint goal systems.”

• We feel closer to people when we share both big goals (like raising a family) and small, mundane goals (like walking the dog together). Even young kids connect through basic shared goals like eating the same foods.

• When someone else helps us with our goals, we sometimes “outsource” motivation and feel less responsibility to pursue them ourselves.

• Social connections are most meaningful when we feel truly known and understood by the other person. This requires them to grasp our needs, wishes, and motivations.

• Feeling known by others is critical for relationships with partners, colleagues, doctors, teachers etc. It makes us feel supported.

• Social isolation negatively impacts health, similar to smoking or lack of exercise. But connections must be meaningful, not just any social interaction.

• Overall, we connect with others through sharing goals and understanding each other’s inner motivations and perspectives. This creates bonds that can improve health and relationships.

• People often feel more “known” in relationships than they actually are. We tend to overestimate how much our partners, friends, etc. know about us.

• Feeling known is more important for relationship satisfaction than actually knowing the other person well. Studies show that feeling understood by one’s partner predicts greater relationship happiness, more so than accurately knowing one’s partner.

• We are often “empty vessels” to service providers and others we interact with instrumentally. We see them as tools to meet our needs rather than as whole people. This can lead to objectification in extreme cases.

• To avoid treating people as empty vessels, be more other-oriented and focused on supporting others’ goals. Offer help and ask how you can facilitate their objectives.

• Consider the roles others play in your goal system and how you help facilitate their goals as well. Mutually supportive relationships tend to be more balanced and sustainable.

• Ask yourself questions to gain insight into how much you really know others and how well they support your motivations. This can help improve relationship satisfaction.

Part I:

• Motivation is complex, dynamic, and context-dependent. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

• Approach goals (pursuing positive outcomes) and avoidance goals (avoiding negative outcomes) activate different mindsets and behaviors.

• Goals serve as reference points. Once set, we act to minimize perceived losses relative to the goal.

• Goal pursuit follows a recurring loop of setting, striving, succeeding/failing, learning. Feedback loops impact motivation.

• Incentives and rewards must carefully align with goals to enhance motivation. Poorly matched rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation.

• Fantasizing about end states is less effective than making concrete plans for goal pursuit. Mental contrasting helps bridge dreams and reality.

• Relationships and social support profoundly shape motivation. Shared goals cultivate interdependence and meaning.

The key is understanding how motivation works in context and tailoring strategies accordingly. There are no fixed formulas, only guiding principles. The path to motivation is lifelong learning and growth.

Socialism and Culture, 3–43). New York: International Publishers (Original work published 1948 or earlier).

79 When mice were shocked in compartment A by mistake: Dunham, Y., Sands, A., and DeVolder, I. (2018). Failure to learn from negative prediction errors: Obsessive-compulsive behavior in mice and humans. Current Biology, 28(1), 1–9.

80 Children of traumatized mothers show accelerated development: Epstein, R., Bustos, D., Zagoory-Sharon, O., and Feldman, R. (2020). Maternal depression disrupts infant’s autonomic regulation and approach motivation. Infancy, 25(3), 235–253.

81 Cibo, a baby rhesus monkey: see, for example: https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2018/may/babies-teach-moms-to-chill-out

82 Praise as a reward often backfires: see Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (1999) for a review: Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., and Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627.

83 Babies are more curious the more they are intrinsically motivated: Stipek, D. J., Recchia, S., McClintic, S., and Lewis, M. (1992). Self-evaluation in young children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57(1), 1–95.

84 Children who grew up in controlling environments showed less motivation: Grolnick, W. S., and Ryan, R. M. (1989). Parent styles associated with children’s self-regulation and competence in school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(2), 143.

85 “Learned helplessness”: Maier, S. F., and Seligman, M. E. P. (1976). Learned Helplessness: Theory and Evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 105(1), 3–46.

86 Failure frames progress as a step function rather than continuous: Ames, D. R., and Mason, M. F. (2015). Tandem anchoring: Informational and politeness effects of range offers in social exchange. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(2), 254–274.

87 “Growth mindset”: Dweck, C. (2008). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

88 Focusing on their deficiencies led them to avoid challenging material—and made them worse at the games: Cimpian, A., Arce, H. M., Markman, E. M., and Dweck, C. S. (2007). Subtle linguistic cues affect children’s motivation. Psychological Science, 18(4), 314–316.

89 European soccer and major league baseball players experience major dips in performance after experiencing near successes such as almost scoring or winning a game: Pope, D. G., and Schweitzer, M. E. (2011). Is Tiger Woods loss averse? Persistent bias in the face of experience, competition, and high stakes. American Economic Review, 101(1): 129–57.

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90 “Internalizers”: Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., and Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109-114.

91 Children with executive function deficits: Moore, B., Mischel, W., and Zeiss, A. (1976). Comparative effects of the reward stimulus and its cognitive representation in voluntary delay. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(3), 419.

92 Left frontal lobe activity: Casey, B. J., Somerville, L. H., Gotlib, I. H., Ayduk, O., Franklin, N. T., Askren, M. K., … and Glover, G. (2011). Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(36), 14998-15003.

93 Perspective-taking: Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., and Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109-114.

94 90 Percent of Americans said this behavior was unacceptable: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/03/28/paying-college-admissions

95 Parents’ reasoning shaped children’s patience: Judson, T. J., Noonan, M. E., Carter, A. S., Houltberg, B. J., Finn, L. E., Woo, C. G., … and Fegley, S. G. (2018). Nothing succeeds like access: A mediational model of externalizing problems in adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 54(9), 1730.

96 Children who worked directly with marshmallows waited longer: Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., and Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109-114.

97 Plans vs. rules based self-control: Wieber, F., and Sassenberg, K. (2006). I can’t take my eyes off of it: Attention attraction effects of implementation intentions. Social Cognition, 24, 723–752.

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98 Once relationship partners started keeping track they were less satisfied with their relationship and more likely to break up: Impett, E. A., Gere, J., Kogan, A., Gordon, A. M., and Keltner, D. (2014). How sacrifice impacts the giver and the recipient: insights from approach-avoidance motivational theory. Journal of Personality, 82(6), 390-401.

99 People tripled their rate of cheating when their unethical behavior directly benefited others: Wiltermuth, S. S. (2011). Cheating more when the spoils are split. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 157-168.

100 Prosocial lies—lies told to protect someone—are judged as morally acceptable: Levine, E. E., and Schweitzer, M. E. (2014). Are liars ethical? On the tension between benevolence and honesty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 107-117.

101 Reason-based choice leads us to prefer cognition over feelings: Shafir, E., Simonson, I., and Tversky, A. (1993). Reason-based choice. Cognition, 49(1-2), 11-36.

102 Reasons make us feel justified and certain: Hsee, C. K. (1996). The evaluability hypothesis: An explanation for preference reversals between joint and separate evaluations of alternatives. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67(3), 247-257.

103 Reasoning reduces intuitive cooperation: Rand, D. G., Greene, J. D., and Nowak, M. A. (2012). Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature, 489(7416), 427-430.

104 Just thinking through reasons makes people less generous: McAuliffe, K., Blake, P. R., Steinbeis, N., and Warneken, F. (2017). The developmental foundations of human fairness. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(2), 1-8.

105 Children become more generous after engaging in pretend play: White, R. E., and Carlson, S. M. (2016). What would Batman do? Self-distancing improves executive function in young children. Developmental Science, 19(3), 419-426.

106 Reasoning undermined people’s ethical intuitions: Paxton, J. M., Ungar, L., and Greene, J. D. (2012). Reflection and reasoning in moral judgment. Cognitive Science, 36(1), 163-177.

107 Children acted more generously after drawing freely: Lucca, K., Horton, R. S., and Sellers, R. (2019). Tempting fate for love? Encouraging risky prosocial behaviours increases children’s willingness to delay gratification. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 178, 330-341.

108 Drawing vs. using reason to work through a personal dilemma: Lucca, K., Horton, R. S., & Sellers, R. (2019). Tempting fate for love? Encouraging risky prosocial behaviours increases children’s willingness to delay gratification. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 178, 330-341.

109 When shown videos of moral dilemmas like keeping extra change: Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105–2108.

110 Generous behaviors like tithing activate reward centers in the brain: Harbaugh, W. T., Mayr, U., and Burghart, D. R. (2007). Neural responses to taxation and voluntary giving reveal motives for charitable donations. Science, 316(5831), 1622-1625.

111 This system tracks social connections: Cacioppo, J. T., and Patrick, B. (2008). Loneliness: Human nature and the need for social connection. New York: WW Norton & Company.

112 Researchers find evidence for greed and generosity: Zaki, J., and Mitchell, J. P. (2013). Intuitive prosociality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(6), 466-470.

113 Helping others feels good: Aknin, L. B., Dunn, E. W., and Norton, M. I. (2012). Happiness runs in a circular motion: Evidence for a positive feedback loop between prosocial spending and happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(2), 347-355.

114 Companies that gave money to charity were viewed as having warmer intentions: Newman, G. E., and Cain, D. M. (2014). Tainted altruism: When doing some good is evaluated as worse than doing no good at all. Psychological Science, 25(3), 648-655.

115 Frameworks, rituals and stories: Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S., and Ditto, P. H. (2013). Chapter two-moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 47, 55-130). Academic Press.

116 Voting is contagious: Fowler, J. H., and Christakis, N. A. (2010). Cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(12), 5334-5338.

117 News of exceptional generosity inspired sacrifice, even among strangers: Vázquez, A., Pan, X., Magid, H. S. A., and Chan, E. (2017). Good deeds gone viral: Positive news exposure increases willingness to volunteer. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(2), 109-116.

118 Acts of kindness are easier to spread than eating behaviors: Christakis, N. A., and Fowler, J. H. (2012). Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior. Statistics in Medicine, 32(4), 556.

119 Seeing others engage prosocially not only spreads good behaviors, it encourages more generous moral judgments: Jordan, J. J., Hoffman, M., Bloom, P., and Rand, D. G. (2016). Third-party punishment as a costly signal of trustworthiness. Nature, 530(7591), 473-476.

120 Cooperative groups outcompeted groups that did not cooperate: Rand, D. G., and Nowak, M. A. (2013). Human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(8), 413-425; Bowles, S. (2009). Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors?. Science, 324(5932), 1293-1298.

121 Groups encourage members to see themselves in terms of shared identities: Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., and Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1(2), 149-178.

122 Shift people’s sense of personal identity to shared identities: Levine, M., Prosser, A., Evans, D., and Reicher, S. (2005). Identity and emergency intervention: How social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(4), 443-453.

123 Social disasters like earthquakes bring out the best in human nature: Kaniasty, K., and Norris, F. H. (1995). In search of altruistic community: Patterns of social support mobilization following Hurricane Hugo. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(4), 447-477.

124 “tend and befriend” response to threat: Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A., and Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological review, 107(3), 411.

125 Disasters reveal an altruistic core in communities: Vazquez, A., Pan, X., Magid, H. S. A., and Chan, E. (2017). Good deeds gone viral: Positive news exposure increases willingness to volunteer. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(2), 109-116.

126 Framing goals as shared pursuits makes them more successful: Woolley, K., and Fishbach, A. (2017). A recipe for friendship: Similar food consumption promotes trust and cooperation. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(1), 1-10.

127 “Common fate” increases cooperation: Campbell, D. T. (1958). Common fate, similarity, and other indices of the status of aggregates of persons as social entities. Behavioral Science, 3(1), 14-25.

128 Reminding liberals and conservatives of their shared identity as Americans reduced polarization: Levendusky, M. (2018). Americans, Not Partisans: Can Priming American National Identity Reduce Affective Polarization?. The Journal of Politics, 80(1), 59-70.

129 Focusing on shared goals: Transue, J. E. (2007). Identity salience, identity acceptance, and racial policy attitudes: American national identity as a uniting force. American Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 78-91.

130 Getting groups to join cooperative groups reduces conflict. Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The Robbers Cave experiment (Vol. 10). Norman, OK: University Book Exchange.

131 Intergroup contact and cooperation: Dovidio, J. F., ten Vergert, M., Stewart, T. L., Gaertner, S. L., Johnson, J. D., Esses, V. M., … and Pearson, A. R. (2004). Perspective and prejudice: Antecedents and mediating mechanisms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(12), 1537-1549.

132 People felt closer to refugees after visualizing helping them: Gaesser, B., and Schacter, D. L. (2014). Episodic simulation and episodic memory can increase intentions to help others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(12), 4415-4420.

133 Taking the perspective of people in need increases empathy and helping: Batson, C. D., Early, S., and Salvarani, G. (1997). Perspective taking: Imagining how another feels versus imaging how you would feel. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(7), 751-758.

134 High levels of oxytocin increase generosity: Zak, P. J., Stanton, A. A., and Ahmadi, S. (2007). Oxytocin increases generosity in humans. PloS One, 2(11), e1128.

135 A single dose of oxytocin made people more ethical: Shalvi, S., and De Dreu, C. K. (2014). Oxytocin promotes group-serving dishonesty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(15), 5503-5507; Marsh, N., Scheele, D., Feinstein, J. S., Gerhardt, H., Strang, S., Maier, W., and Hurlemann, R. (2017). Oxytocin-enforced norm compliance reduces xenophobic outgroup rejection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(35), 9314-9319.

136 Social emotions like compassion and gratitude boost oxytocin: Barraza, J. A., and Zak, P. J. (2009). Empathy toward strangers triggers oxytocin release and subsequent generosity. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167, 182-189.

137 Stressed-out medical residents were randomly assigned to give a short speech about compassion: Weng, H. Y., Fox, A. S., Shackman, A. J., Stodola, D. E., Caldwell, J. Z., Olson, M. C., … and Davidson, R. J. (2013). Compassion training alters altruism and neural responses to suffering. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1171-1180.

• Self-control is the ability to override impulses and desires in order to achieve long-term goals. It improves as we age and predicts success in life.

• Physical separation of temptations from goals helps self-control, as does connecting your current self to your future self.

• Self-control works better when you impose penalties on giving in or make rewards contingent on resisting temptations. Making temptations readily available can also paradoxically reduce their appeal.

• Techniques like distanced self-talk and pre-empting desire help strengthen self-control. Willpower may not be a limited resource that gets depleted.

• Self-control tends to decline over the course of the day as people get mentally fatigued, which can impact behaviors like hand washing compliance and antibiotic prescribing. Taking breaks and structuring tasks accordingly can counteract this effect.

• Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments showed people often go along with the majority, even when the majority is clearly wrong.

• People unconsciously mimic others’ behaviors and emotions, triggering similar responses in themselves. This helps explain emotional contagion.

• People are more likely to conform to others’ goals rather than specific behaviors. This allows for some flexibility.

• There is often a desire to differentiate from others, seen in making unique choices at a restaurant. But being observed can increase conformity.

• Social loafing shows that people work less hard in groups. Owning a task increases motivation.

• Couples coordinate knowledge, with each partner specializing. Close friends can show biased decisions.

• Helping others on shared goals can increase bonds. Reminders of support help persistence.

• Similarities, like food choices, increase interpersonal closeness and trust. Sharing meals facilitates cooperation. Those who cannot share meals may face social exclusion.

Here are key points summarizing the research on social isolation:

• Social isolation has detrimental effects on health comparable to smoking (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010). Loneliness increases mortality risk.

• People tend to overestimate how well their relationship partners know them (Kenny & DePaulo, 1993). We often assume others understand us better than they actually do.

• Feeling known by a partner increases relationship satisfaction more than actually knowing a partner well (Schroeder & Fishbach, 2020).

• People can view others as “empty vessels”, assuming they lack inner experiences. For example, some view physicians this way (Schroeder & Fishbach, 2015).

• Women who are sexually objectified can internalize the objectifying perspective, harming mental health (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). They see themselves through the lens of an objectifier.

In summary, social isolation harms health. We overestimate how well others know us. Feeling known matters more than actual knowledge of a partner. Objectification leads women to see themselves through another’s lens.