We regard being polite as a complex trait of personality that is largely in the control of any adult, regardless of her genetic makeup or upbringing. It is simply a matter of choosing to say “please” and “thank you,” and deciding not to make fun of the ugly guy on the bus. Consequently, we feel comfortable holding people responsible for their politeness, and judging them harshly for impoliteness.
Many people think of hard work in pretty much the same way as politeness. Regardless of whether you inherited a smart brain or a naturally fit body, and regardless of how you were raised, an adult can choose to “work hard.” Failure to do so is laziness, and is a sin in a way that being ugly is not a sin.
But suppose it turns out that self-control is largely genetically determined, with a small part being determined before, say, junior high school. Suppose it turns out that the basic ability to suppress impulses, focus on long-term goals despite short-term stress, and generally to translate what one knows is best for oneself into action, are all cognitive traits that are largely determined by genetics, prenatal environment, and early childhood.
How would (and how should) this change our culture?
Realistically, if the science ends up backing this up, I think the science will just get ignored–that’s how central our notions of self-control are to our culture. But imagining a world in which people actually believed what I’m asking you to suppose to be true (that hard work is not determined by free will), how would it change? Would various world religions focused on self-restraint still make sense? Would contemporary political philosophies make sense? What would and should replace them?
I know that they are not. I, myself, experience variation in my ability to suppress impulses, focus on long term goals, and so forth, on a day-to-day basis. Some days I eat healthy, while other days I eat seven cookies before lunch time. Some days I’m able to restrain myself from spending any money. Other days I’ll spend fifty bucks on a stack of old comic books that I’ll probably never read.
Moreover, I have seen personality shifts in myself and others, from less controlled and focused to more. (And I suppose I’ve seen a few people go the other way too.) If such traits were determined by genes, prenatal environment, and early childhood, they would not change from year to year, much less day to day. The hypothetical scientific findings that you describe would have to come from a different species of humans than the one that I’m familiar with.
If there’s anything I’ve learned on this board after 10 years, it’s that everyone fights the hypothetical!
I’m not sure why inter-temporal variability of perceived self-control disproves the hypothesis that it is largely determined pre-adulthood. For one thing, self-control could be a finite resource–the more you’re using it on something, the less is available for something else. Maybe the day you splurged on cookies, you were focusing your limited self-restraint on something else. You would similarly have to control for these factors in an observed shift in an individual’s self-control.
That said, if you’ll accept my hypothetical for a moment, do you think it matters? If it turns out that self-control is like attractiveness, does that have radical implications for, say, Christianity?
FWIW, there’s evidence that this is, in fact, true, though I don’t have a cite offhand.
I don’t think Christianity counts as a “religion focused on self-restraint.” Christianity acknowledges that people are sinful and don’t always do what they should, even when they want to.
I agree that Christianity doesn’t assume perfect self-control. But does it assume roughly equally distributed abilities of self-control?
It seems to me that as a cultural phenomenon, at least, Christianity relies somewhat on the premise that each of us has a roughly similar capacity to choose to do what is right and resist short-term impulses, such that those who fail to exercise self-control are judged more harshly (if not by God, perhaps). No?
I would fully expect that some parents, educators, and the psychological community would fully embrace the science and would seek additional social leeway, accommodations, and possibly new pharmaceutical solutions to deal with the science.
I don’t think it would have many larger implications for religions and such. Most of those “self control” religions have already advocated control in the face of biological urges, so I can’t imagine they’d suddenly change because it’s harder for some people than others to control themselves.
Indeed. This is the kind of science I think we can imagine culminating in a kind of paradigm shift away from a model of justice and merit based on self-control and toward something else. I don’t know enough about the science to judge whether that will happen or not. But what I find fascinating to contemplate is what the “something else” would be.
And I wonder if I’m wrong to think that this particular corner of our notions of free will is critically important to our culture and society.
[Quote=Trom’s cite]
However, recent work calls into question whether self-control, as opposed to strategic reasoning, determines children’s behavior.
[/quote]
I don’t see much of a distinction; self-control is what helps you stick to strategic reasoning, as opposed to abandoning it at the first sign of adversity or disappointment.
Consider the following altered excerpt from a speechgiven by a political candidate:
Doesn’t the absurdity of such a speech suggest that American political culture, at least, would have to change somewhat if we regarded self-control to be a roll-of-the-dice trait?
That was not an experiment about genetics, though. The OP and the title aren’t in accord, but the OP explicitly postulated a (largely) genetic determination.
While the experiment didn’t demonstrate, there is no reason to think that self control is bimodal. If it is not, penalties for lack of self control might push those in the middle into exercising some, even if it does not help those without much.
It hardly matters how much self control is determined by nature or nurture - unless there is some way of conditioning people to exercise more.
Maybe the people in California who no longer are allowed to try to convert gays should start trying to convert those without self control.
Fair enough. The difference between genetics and early childhood education would be, presumably, that we can’t fix genetics but we might improve education/parenting. But it would still be a radical shift if we understood self-control to be something you get or don’t get as a young child, wouldn’t it?
Hmm. This seems to assume that at any given time you may or may not be “using your self-control”–meaning there is a sort of meta-self-control that determines whether to use self-control. But if we understand self-control to be actively making a decision about whether we prefer a long-term reward over a short-term hardship (for example), then we would always be using it to the extent possible. In this view of self-control, it doesn’t mean we’d never choose the short-term reward; it just means we’d never choose it out of a lack of capacity to choose the long-term one.
Who’s “we”? I’m pretty familiar with the literature on this subject, so it’s no surprise to me.
But, all we know right now is that, without intervention, self-control seems to be set early in life. What we don’t know, is if there is anything we can do about it. There might even be a drug one could take.
And you’re right, of course, about the state of the science. I’m not at all suggesting that the hypothetical I’m posing is where the science will inevitably take us. I’m just thinking about what the world looks like if that’s where we end up.
Similarly to what you said earlier, most people would ignore it-- at least as it applies to them. I have good self control because of steps I’ve taken and decisions I’ve made. I wasn’t just born that way (take that, Lady Gaga!!).
Can people improve their self-control? Possibly, by one of two ways:
(1) By exercising it like a muscle to make it grow stronger.
(2) By learning techniques that make self-control easier. For example, I have read that children who “passed” the marshmallow test referred to upthread did so not by simply gritting their teeth and resisting the temptation, but by focusing their attention on something else instead of the marshmallow.
Well, okay, if self-control is ‘largely’ determined by genetic and early childhood experiences, then I’d say the best things that society can do is expand that small part that is a individual choice as much as possible, and focus it on the areas that matter most.
I don’t see why it would be. Christian doctrine teaches us to love without thinking of causes. When I serve in my church’s food bank, we hand out food based on the income of those who come seeking help, not based on the reasons why they’re in need of food, be it genetic or otherwise. Even supposing genetic evidence emerged showing that some people just can’t get their life in order sufficiently to get a steady food supply on their own, that would not offer any reason for us to change our practices.
