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Pico - Breakdown of Will

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Behavioral science has long been puzzled by the experience of temptation, the resulting impulsiveness, and the variably successful control of this impulsiveness.  Breakdown of Will (Ainslie, 2001) presents evidence that contradicts rational models in which discounting the value of future events at a constant rate keeps preference consistent.  Both people and nonhuman animals discount the value of expected events in a curve where value is divided approximately by expected delay, a hyperbolic form that is more bowed than the rational, exponential curve.  This finding implies that conflicting reward-seeking processes will arise spontaneously to get incompatible goals available at different times, that in humans these processes will in effect bargain with each other, and that this bargaining can create ego functions like willpower from the bottom up.  Motivation-based models of classical conditioning, compulsiveness, empathy, and the social construction of belief become possible.

Pico - Breakdown of Will Précis of Breakdown of Will , 2005 Ainslie, G., (2005) Précis of Breakdown of Will. Behavioral and Brain Science 28, 635-673. www.picoeconomics.org/HTarticles/Bkdn_Precis/Precis2.html For a PDF version of this article that can be printed or downloaded, click here: ` Précis of Breakdown of Will George Ainslie Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville PA, USA University of Cape Town, South Africa George.Ainslie@va.gov Published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, 635-673, 2005 Based on: BREAKDOWN OF WILL Cambridge , 2001,258pp. IBSN: 0-521-59694-7 This materia

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