I have more self-control than you do! I have more self-control than you do!
“Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” he said. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”
In a study published by the University of Maryland in 2003, students who were subliminally exposed to religious words (like God, prayer or bible) were slower to recognize words associated with temptations (like drugs or premarital sex). Conversely, when they were primed with the temptation words, they were quicker to recognize the religious words.
“It looks as if people come to associate religion with tamping down these temptations,” McCullough said. “When temptations cross their minds in daily life, they quickly use religion to dispel them from their minds.”
In one personality study, strongly religious people were compared with people who subscribed to more general spiritual notions, like the idea that their lives were “directed by a spiritual force greater than any human being” or that they felt “a spiritual connection to other people.” The religious people scored relatively high in conscientiousness and self-control, whereas the spiritual people tended to score relatively low.
“Thinking about the oneness of humanity and the unity of nature doesn’t seem to be related to self-control,” McCullough said. “The self-control effect seems to come from being engaged in religious institutions and behaviors.”
Does this mean that nonbelievers like me should start going to church? Even if you don’t believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organized religion.
But that probably wouldn’t work either, McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.
Not so much self-control as boredom with foolishness.
Breaking: Blago to appoint Roland Burris to The Messiah’s former Senate seat. Heh. Can’t wait to hear what The One has to say.
#2. Ssssh, I’m putting (?)
Hilarious news, Pablo. And the praise will now roll down from the skies. Priceless theater, this one.
Any background on this guy, Major? I’ve never heard of him.
Oh, he’s black. That adds to the fun. And by fun, I mean this.
This Blago is growing on me.
Interesting post, Dan. Perhaps it has something to do with the inward sense of satisfaction knowledge and belief in God bring supplanting the urge for satisfaction from material items. I know I’m quite happy with my life, even though I don’t have the lasted electronic geegaws, the snazziest car, the latest fashions.
Is there room in religious doctrine (of whatever sort) for this sort of scientific investigation of its material basis? Or may that be a source of friction, do you think?
#5 – an absolutely do nothing AG of IL. Porr to mediocre record of work, really gave a great effort at self-promotion.
He has run for everything he could – and got beat time after time in the primaries (ran for Paul Simon’s Senate seat, etc). I think the IL Dem Party let him have the State AG spot out of pity…
The tendency toward self-control as opposed to impulsiveness can be measured quite young. They have studies where they’ll sit a kid alone in a room at a table with some M&Ms in front of them. They tell the kid that they’re going to leave for X amount of time, and if all the M&Ms are still there, they’ll get more.
Some kids knew how to resist the temptation by distracting themselves, but other kids would try for awhile, pushing the candies around, then finally giving in.
Turned out that the test was a pretty good predictor for later success in life.
But whether a tendency toward self-control is the cause or the result of religious involvement, I cannot say. The two pillars of morality are empathy and self-control; if you fail to balance the two you get either a heartless fanatic or a mindless squish.
#5 – I don’t count his time as Comptroller of IL as anything either. I have yet to see anyone D or R in IL make a mark in that spot…
The richest people I know have very little self-control, dicentra, fast cars, mistresses, drugs and booze, etc.
You should have pledged another fraternity, tuber.
Define rich. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs don’t strike me as the boozing, partying, sex fiend, adrenaline junkie type.
Snippy, would that be the Kennedys or the Heinz-Kerrys that you refer to?
The folks under them, in the $100,000,000 – $1,000,000,000 net worth range, Geek.
You know a lot of folks worth over a hundred million, tuber? Besides thor, I mean?
It’s pretty common in my neighborhood, B Moe.
I might point out that once these folks have made their fortunes they begin to settle down.
The wild behavior comes during the climb to wealth.
Motivation.
Another true liberal, just hanging with the working man! Your whole life is a parody. Truly hilarious.
Liberals don’t hate wealth, Log, they just want to spread it around a little.
Didn’t Obama get his Senate seat off the rich guy who wanted his wife, 7 of 9, to perform public sex acts with him?
just not their own.
Calm? I’m dead calm.
To touch back on the brief OffTopic posts on Blago’s appointment of Burris for PeBHO’s vacated Senate seat, see Harry Reid’s reaction, here. Tee-f’in-hee is where this is going. Couldn’t happen too a nicer party either.
parsnip: “The richest people I know have very little self-control, dicentra, fast cars, mistresses, drugs and booze, etc.”
Oh, the Kennedy clan…
Blago?
Rings a bell.
Don’t tell me…thtat’s right, he’s the guy who was gonna bring down Obama.
Tee-f’in-hee indeedy.
The richest people you know? I suspect you’re referring to the mullet-heads in your trailer park? The ones who have, like, jobs?
Heh, I stand corrected. Kennedys don’t “do” mullets.
The richest people I know have very little self-control, dicentra, fast cars, mistresses, drugs and booze, etc.
Snippy, luv, I think that your definition of “successful” differs from mine. If you’re living the kind of lifestyle that you describe, I’d call your life a freaking mess.
So, rebuttal refused.
I guess this helps explain the shallowness and shortcomings of the Shirley Maclaine, new age, crowd…
“The richest people I know have very little self-control, dicentra, fast cars, mistresses, drugs and booze, etc.”
Then we have people who become president.
Pardon mois, WTF is “dicentra”? I only know it as a flower, commonly called Bleeding-Heart. Did I miss a memo?
“Is there room in religious doctrine (of whatever sort) for this sort of scientific investigation of its material basis? Or may that be a source of friction, do you think?”
Perhaps only the evangelical fundamentalists, and other Bible literalists, would have a problem with this. I consider myself a devout Catholic, but have no problem at all reconciling the theological belief that God created the heavens and the earth with the scientific theory of evolution as we understand it. Nor do I suffer the least bit of dissonance with cosmology and my faith. Once again, while we can reason our way back to a millisecond following the big-bang, we can’t mathematically define what mover put it all into motion. I believe that prime mover to be God…
Most scholarly theologians recognize many of the oldest Bible books to be written in allegorical style. So, while their overall content may be factual, it is recognized that some liscence was taken with the narrative arc. so to speak…
All this doesn’t mean that I don’t respect the right for my non-believing fellows to hold to their own point of view. After all, religious and ideological beliefs are the fundamental private property that the founders of our nation believed to be sacrosanct. It’s just nice to see the God-botherers get a little credit for something; besides being bigots and racists…
Thanks for the thoughtful response Bob. I’m struck by your notion of religious and ideological beliefs as fundamental private property, whereas, I’d have thought that in their universality and [semblant] immateriality (which the underlying article seems to undercut) they’d be more like some perfectly public property, something that everyone could have and hold at the same time in the same respect without taking away from any other’s right to have and hold the same thing at the same time, most unlike ordinary stuff, say, a given candybar or house or piece of ground. Is it due to a recognition that beliefs and ideologies are in fact just stuff, ordered material, in the ordinary and serious sense that brings you to see them as private?
meya: “Then we have people who become president.”
Oh, yeah… I’d forgotten about Bubba…