title: Theories of willpower affect sustained learning.
abstract: Building cognitive abilities often requires sustained engagement with effortful tasks. We demonstrate that beliefs about willpower-whether willpower is viewed as a limited or non-limited resource-impact sustained learning on a strenuous mental task. As predicted, beliefs about willpower did not affect accuracy or improvement during the initial phases of learning; however, participants who were led to view willpower as non-limited showed greater sustained learning over the full duration of the task. These findings highlight the interactive nature of motivational and cognitive processes: motivational factors can substantially affect people's ability to recruit their cognitive resources to sustain learning over time.
authors: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America. ermiller@stanford.edu
authors: Eric M
authors: EM
authors: Miller
authors: Gregory M
authors: GM
authors: Walton
authors: Carol S
authors: CS
authors: Dweck
authors: Veronika
authors: V
authors: Job
authors: Kali H
authors: KH
authors: Trzesniewski
authors: Samuel M
authors: SM
authors: McClure
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology