'Self Control Depletion' vs Stress

[minkee]

Patricia McConnell's latest blog post talks about 'self control depletion' which basically says that the more you refrain from doing one thing, the less likely you are to be able to refrain from doing something else. The human's example in the post is - to refrain from eating a cookie (difficult!) makes it harder to accomplish a puzzle - you're more likely to give up because you've used up all your self control on not eating the cookie. If you're asked not to eat a radish, then it's easier, because not eating a radish takes less self control.
The dog's example is to stay in a sit while a toy whizzes around. Then later meet or not meet (the dog's choice) a reactive dog that is shouting at them. Dogs that only have to wait in a crate (rather than the sit-stay) show more self-control and choose not to greet the reactive dog. The ones that stayed in a sit stay took more of a risk and decided to go upto the reactive dog.

Here's a link to the full story (not sure how well I've described it there!!) http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theoth ... etion-dogs

My question is this: Do we think this is the same or slightly different behaviour to what we describe when we tell people to monitor their dogs stress. Is the sit-stay with toy whizzing round really just a build up of stress, which makes them less likely to cope? Or do you think there's a difference between the two?

[ScarletSci]

Not dog related exactly, but the human psychology studies that suggest that willpower or self-control is a limited resource have since been debunked. There was some interesting research that linked this depletion to glucose levels, but this has since been shown to have a strong placebo effect. I can supply links to papers for you later should you wish. In fact, latest research and meta studies suggest that people who believe that self-control is a limited resource are the ones who act as though it's a limited resource. More of a self-fulfilling prophesy!

That said, the build up of stress leading to a tipping point is valid, and likely controlled by a different mechanism. I have little doubt that small stresses will built up until they become overwhelming (we experience it all the time when a bad day seems to get worse and worse, until the proverbial straw that broke the camels back comes along) - we just might need to look for a different underlying causation than the willpower depletion model, since that was a model built on flawed methodology.

[gwd]

Not dog related exactly, but the human psychology studies that suggest that willpower or self-control is a limited resource have since been debunked. There was some interesting research that linked this depletion to glucose levels, but this has since been shown to have a strong placebo effect. I can supply links to papers for you later should you wish. In fact, latest research and meta studies suggest that people who believe that self-control is a limited resource are the ones who act as though it's a limited resource. More of a self-fulfilling prophesy!

de wall, unin of kentucky did a paper on the effect of low BG and self control and aggression and violence.

[ScarletSci]

http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/upl ... 244259.pdf

If you're short of time or feeling depleted then skip to the conclusion, it gives a good summary and names to look for further research.

I'm at the University of Bristol, known for its research, studying psychology. We covered this recently, and I was surprised myself that it had been debunked, since I was reading about the glucose studies in The Psychologist just the other month. But we have to be up to date on the latest research, and we went into this in some depth. During discussion, we concluded that the problem is that results like the ones Miller found are so seductive, because they appeal to common sense. They feel true, because we do feel as though willpower is a finite resource, and we're more likely to give in to temptations when we're feeling tired, hungry, or have had a bad day. The limited resource model is very appealing to explain that. The trouble is, that once those results are published and the media writes a lot of articles about it, it pervades the public consciousness and will take a long time to be corrected. We're still working on the public perception that Freud (unofficially and semi-affectionately known as "Fraud" in the social sciences) is the centre of psychology.

Other psychologists, also amazed by the results of Miller's work, tried their own trials and examined the methodology, particularly the proposed link to glucose levels, and found that the limited resource model isn't accurate. It certainly doesn't relate to glucose levels, by any means.

There is undoubtedly something at play when we feel that we're running out of willpower, and as Minkee is talking about, when a human or animal reaches the end of its limits in terms of stress. But we don't know what that is just yet, but the self-control depletion model isn't it.

[gwd]

During discussion, we concluded that the problem is that results like the ones Miller found are so seductive, because they appeal to common sense.

OH is a consultant for pharmaceutical drug development. he has mentioned on more than on occasion that it's important to remember you're collecting data to find answers, or even to raise new questions, and not to support beliefs.

[JudyN]

I'm at the University of Bristol, known for its research, studying psychology.

Ooh! I did philosophy & psychology at Bristol, in 79-82! (I know, I'm old ) Are you still in Berkeley Square?

Sorry, off topic....

[ScarletSci]

Oh I didn't mean you gwd, I meant in the media, these kind of studies have mass appeal, and seem to confirm what makes sense to us. That's seductive, and it then pervades the general population because it seems to be science backing up what feels like common sense. So we see these articles and go "hhmm, that makes sense!" and it becomes better known. What's less well known is when these studies are then widely replicated, and the conclusion turns out to be erroneous. That story doesn't make such a good article, so the first one remains in general consciousness. This is one that I imagine will run and run!

It's similar to the pack leader, alpha nonsense based on very old studies on unrelated captive wolves. You know how hard that stuff has been to shift from general knowledge, long after it's been proven to be deeply flawed. Even the person responsible for that research can't get people to listen to the fact that it's wrong! The self-control limited resource model is far less damaging than that example though.

Judy, hey! A fellow! We're not far from Berkeley Square, but the uni has now changed the psychology department to the school of experimental psychology, based on Priory Rd. That tends to be where we run experiments though *mad scientist cackle*, so lectures tend to be spread about, in the physics building and chemistry building quite often! I have no idea why, except maybe that the lecture theatres are large! I have to admit, I like the fact that it doesn't have a campus as such. There are some very beautiful buildings around there. You're not old! I feel that way though being a mature student. I'm thirty and surrounded by 19/20 year olds. I'm rapidly going grey!

[JudyN]

I feel that way though being a mature student.

Oh I may be old, but I'm not mature

[ScarletSci]

Best way to be!

[Nettle]

Not exactly dog-related, but I know I am far less tolerant when my blood sugar is low, and given that many people have blood-sugar issues that are not sufficiently severe to be detectable in a standard test, might this skew results vis a vis 'self-control'? Not that one has less, but that one is less inclined to use it at such times.

Add menopause and stand WELL back.......

[ScarletSci]

Possibly... I'd be inclined to think that if the blood sugar fluctuation was too small to register on a standard test then it would be too small to have much impact on behaviour.

Leaving the science bit aside for now, I tend to approach animal behaviour and stresses in the same terms as human. That sounds a bit wacky, but let me explain first then let me know what you think. In many twelve step programmes, they have the acronym HALT. It means that when someone is starting to feel bad, they have to halt and ask themselves "am I feeling hungry? angry? lonely? or tired?" If so, they have to fix that thing before they can face whatever thing they are finding challenging. Because if you are in any of those states, your cognition is impaired - and you're less likely to make healthy, rational decisions.

It's simple, but surprisingly easy for us to overlook. We rely on our brains to be rational at all times, but emotional states and physical discomfort make us far less rational than we'd like to admit. There's even a known correlation between something as simple as hot weather and a rise in crime rates. When we, with our large brains and highly developed frontal lobes are susceptible to losing our cool due to pressures in the environment or because we're feeling upset about something else, then how is it fair to expect our dogs to always engage their thinking brain when they are feeling stressed, angry, tired or hot and bothered?

Back to the stressed dog, it's pretty well established that high levels of cortisol lead to impaired cognitive function. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17606815
So it makes perfect sense to monitor a dogs stress levels not just from the obvious humane angle, but because a stressed out dog, or human, is going to struggle to learn, to access memory, and to handle additional stresses when cortisol levels are already high.