Splurge on a vacation, or save for retirement? Sleep in late, or get up to exercise? The ability to resist a tempting, immediately available reward in order to obtain a larger delayed reward is the hallmark of self-control, and predicts important life outcomes, such as academic achievement (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005) and social adjustment (Mischel & Ayduk, 2004). Unfortunately, immediate rewards are often difficult to resist. One key factor that makes them so appealing is temporal discounting-the tendency to consider events as less important if they occur in the distant future, rather than in the near future (Ainslie, 2001). This tendency tempts people to choose a small immediate reward over a larger delayed reward, simply because the first is immediately available. But such a choice can greatly sabotage the attainment of long-term goals.To study temporal discounting, researchers (e.g., Estle, Green, Myerson, & Holt, 2007) typically have participants choose between smaller, sooner rewards and larger, later rewards (e.g., ''Would you prefer [A] $5 today OR [B] $6.20 in 26 days?''). Decision makers commonly view such situations as a choice between a good alternative soon and a better alternative later. However, these choices do not explicitly refer to the fact that choosing to receive one alternative also means choosing not to receive the other. In other words, decision makers are implicitly encouraged to choose between one-shot events, rather than between sequences of events, in which choosing an immediate reward also means choosing to receive nothing later, and vice versa (e.g.

Many of us succumb to temptations, despite knowing that we will later regret doing so. How can such behavior be avoided? In three studies, the authors tested the hypothesis that reconstruing temptation as a test of a valued internal quality ("willpower") would decrease the tendency to succumb by reducing the appeal of the temptation. In Study 1, participants who construed a challenging handgrip task as a test of willpower resisted the temptation to terminate the painful task longer than participants who did not. In Study 2, participants performed a handgrip task twice. Only participants who changed their construal of the task into a test of willpower improved their performance. In Study 3, participants took a timed math test while being tempted by comedy clips. Participants who reconstrued the situation as willpower test compared with participants who did not, (a) enjoyed the videos less, and (b) were better able to resist the tempting videos. These studies demonstrate that cognitive reconstrual can be used to modify reward contingencies, so that succumbing to temptation becomes less appealing, and resisting temptation becomes more appealing.

People often exert willpower to choose a more valuable delayed reward over a less valuable immediate reward, but using willpower is taxing and frequently fails. In this research, we demonstrate the ability to enhance self-control (i.e., forgoing smaller immediate rewards in favor of larger delayed rewards) without exerting additional willpower. Using behavioral and neuroimaging data, we show that a reframing of rewards (i) reduced the subjective value of smaller immediate rewards relative to larger delayed rewards, (ii) increased the likelihood of choosing the larger delayed rewards when choosing between two real monetary rewards, (iii) reduced the brain reward responses to immediate rewards in the dorsal and ventral striatum, and (iv) reduced brain activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (a correlate of willpower) when participants chose the same larger later rewards across the two choice frames. We conclude that reframing can promote self-control while avoiding the need for additional willpower expenditure.temporal discounting | judgment and decision-making | neuroeconomics | reward reframing

Advice is a common element of supportive interactions, but unsolicited advice can harm the advice recipient as well as the relationship between the advice recipient and the advice giver. Despite the potential negative implications of unsolicited advice, very little is known about what predicts unsolicited advice giving in personal relationships. The present studies provide an empirical test of the association between relational closeness and unsolicited advice giving. In two studies, undergraduate students and members of the general population responded to hypothetical statements of discontent from friends who were not asking for advice. Relational closeness and unsolicited advice giving were positively correlated, with participants tending to provide more unsolicited advice to friends toward whom they felt greater relational closeness. Overall, participants gave unsolicited advice to their friends at a very early stage of a supportive interaction in approximately 70% of cases. Explanations and implications for these findings were discussed.