In the present study, we used experience sampling to measure desires and desire regulation in everyday life. Our analysis included data from 205 adults, who furnished a total of 7,827 reports of their desires over the course of a week. Across various desire domains, results revealed substantial differences in desire frequency and strength, the degree of conflict between desires and other goals, and the likelihood of resisting desire and the success of this resistance. Desires for sleep and sex were experienced most intensively, whereas desires for tobacco and alcohol had the lowest average strength, despite the fact that these substances are thought of as addictive. Desires for leisure and sleep conflicted the most with other goals, and desires for media use and work brought about the most self-control failure. In addition, we observed support for a limited-resource model of self-control employing a novel operationalization of cumulative resource depletion: The frequency and recency of engaging in prior self-control negatively predicted people's success at resisting subsequent desires on the same day.
A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.
Why is there evil? This question has captured the interest of scholars of diverse specialties and backgrounds for centuries. The methods of answering it and the answers themselves have similarly reflected this diversity. My approach is that of a social scientist. The methods and research findings of social scientists can be brought to bear on what for others has been a legal, practical, theological, philosophical, or other kind of problem. One obstacle for the social scientist is the conflict between the inherent immorality of the topic and the professional scientist’s goal of unbiased neutrality. Social scientists are not supposed to let their values cloud their judgment, because doing so can impede the impartial search for truth. But can we view the crimes of Hitler and his minions with the same dispassionate and nonjudgmental attitude with which we observe the bar pressing of rats in a Skinner box? When doing research for my book on evil (Baumeister, 1997), I was struck by how routinely other social scientists rushed to assert that this was not really a problem. To understand is not to forgive, they insisted. Yet I was not so sure. Indeed, my own work pointed toward different conclusions. In particular, as we understand the perpetrators’ inner processes and attitudes, we come to see their crimes as considerably less heinous than how others judge them. Most people who commit evil acts do not themselves regard their actions as evil. Therefore, to understand their perspective is to understand the actions in a way that somehow diminishes their evilness. To be sure, as researchers and scientists our primary goal is to understand. Hence, we must perhaps accept that our approach will carry the moral risk of mitigating our condemnation of some of the worst things that human beings do. The purpose of this chapter is to answer the question “Why is there evil?” from the perspective of psychological research. Because few people regard their own actions as evil, it is necessary to reformulate this question as, “Why do some people do things that other people consider to be evil?” This requires both an understanding of how people perceive evil and why people are motivated to perform certain kinds of actions. Hence, this chapter contains three sections. The first addresses the question of what evil is, including the gap between perception and reality. The second considers the root causes of such behavior. The third turns to the proximal causation, which ultimately may be more tractable than the root causes.
Sexual economics theory assumes that heterosexual communities can be analyzed as marketplaces in which men offer women resources such as love, respect, money, and commitment in exchange for sex. In response to economic, political, and other disadvantages, women collectively restrict their sexuality to maintain a low supply relative to male demand, thereby ensuring a high price. Hence, we tested the hypothesis that sexual norms and practices would be more restrictive in countries marked by gender inequality than in countries where the genders were more equal. An international online sex survey (N>317,000) yielded four measures of sexual activity, and 37 nations' means on all four measures were correlated with independent (World Economic Forum) ratings of gender equality. Consistent with predictions, relatively high gender equality was associated with more casual sex, more sex partners per capita, younger ages for first sex, and greater tolerance/approval of premarital sex.
The present study explores the role of personality in moderating the effect of public social context on self-control. The authors predicted that in public settings neuroticism would be associated with ego-depletion effects and individual differences in impression management (IM) would be associated with restoration effects. Three experiments supported the hypothesis. In Study 1 neuroticism was associated with impaired self-control and IM was associated with enhanced self-control following an initial phase of working on a simple task in public (vs. in private). Study 2 replicated and extended these results to other domains of self-control. Study 3 explored whether public social context can cancel out early depletion effects. In this study, depleted participants engaged in a task that required self-control either alone or in public. As expected, the public settings were associated with restored self-control resources mostly among high IM individuals. Implications for self-control, neuroticism, and IM are discussed.
This chapter discusses coping and ego depletion, and combines a new approach to the self with a traditional, standard idea about coping in order to understand the coping process. The central idea is that many operations of the self involve the consumption of a limited resource. This resource is used in volition (e.g., choice, responsible decision-making, and active responses) and self-control. Stress makes severe demands on this resource, because people must engage in active responding and must regulate themselves so as to adapt to difficult circumstances.
