108 / Rotman Management Spring 20 19
One of the most important lessons from the social and
behavioural sciences over the past few decades is that our
surroundings influence our behaviour to a much greater
degree than we realize. Of course, some people and institu-
tions do care about our long-term interests — our spouses,
friends and families, perhaps our religious organizations,
maybe even life insurance companies — but most of these
entities are not part of our moment-to-moment environ-
ment. That is made up largely of entities who want us to be
impulsive and to live in the here and now. Faceb o ok up-
dates, Google alerts, and Gilt flash sales are their ammuni-
tion; and by making us feel good in the moment, they make
us focus on what is good for them in the short term instead of
what’s good for us in the long term.
In essence, our behaviour is being shaped by people
who are banking on how easily we will give in to temptation.
We may think that once we know that these commercial in-
terests are after us, our time, money and attention, there is
something we can do about it. After all, we often believe our-
selves to be rational beings. We just need to have the right
information available, and we will immediately make the
right decisions. We eat too much? Just provide us with calo-
rie information. We don’t save enough? Just give us a retire-
ment calculator and watch our savings grow. Texting whileOVEREATING, UNDER-SAVING,
over-borrowing and un-
der-exercising are just a
few of the short-sighted
behaviours that we are
often guilty of. Now the
bad news: Acting in our own long-term interest is only
getting more and more difficult. Why? Because our world
has become more hostile to our ability to make decisions.
It is a world in which everyone wants something from us —
our money, our attention, our time — and they are armed
not with guns, but with our vices.
Adding to the challenge is the sad fact that the way we
have designed the world around us does not help us fight
temptation or think long term. In fact, if an alien were to ob-
serve the way we have designed the world, the only sensible
conclusion would be that human beings are determined to
create more and more temptations that make us think more
and more myopically and make more and more mistakes.
Think about it: Will the next version of the donut (donut
2.0) be more or less tempting? Will the next version of the
smartphone get us to check it more or less throughout the
day? And will the next version of Faceb o ok tempt us to up-
date our status more or less frequently?The Problem
with Self-Control
POINT OF VIEW Janet A. Schwartz, Professor of Marketing, Tulane University and Dan Ariely, Behavioural Economics Expert