Self-control is a learnable skill, not an innate trait

We usually read self-control as a character trait: you have it or you don’t. Walter Mischel’s marshmallow test fed that picture, because the children who waited longer turned out, decades later, to earn more, be healthier and have stronger friendships. Kentaro Fujita points at the finding that got skipped over: those children were being taught strategies, and the strategies worked. Three-year-olds stare at the marshmallow on the assumption that staring helps. Five-year-olds have already worked out that covering it up or looking away works better. By thirteen, the children who understood the rules of self-control had fewer behavioural problems. The route is known too: children pick it up largely by watching what adults do. The distinction that makes this possible is that willpower and self-control are two different things. Willpower is the blunt version, suppressing the impulse, and training it produces small and erratic effects in the research. Self-control is the toolkit around it:…