14 DAY TRIAL // Very many people tend not to consider long-term benefits or consequences of their actions too seriously. When faced with the classic dilemma, of eating either chocolate or an apple, most prefer to eat the sweet instead, rather than the healthier fruit. Psychologists say that this is primarily owed to the fact that the amount of gratification people get from the chocolate is considerably larger in the short-run, and therefore the benefits that eating apples, or any other type of vegetables and fruits, brings in the long run are often overlooked.
According to a new scientific study, it would appear that people's brains are hardwired to make this kind of choice, which means that whoever wants to stop indulging in unhealthy foods, for example, will need to fight both temptation and their own brain. It was also found that individuals generally have an even tougher time letting go of immediate rewards if they know what those rewards are. Not being aware of what they are missing apparently makes resisting temptation a lot easier, the researchers reveal, quoted by LiveScience.
“Do everything you can to get your attention away from any kind of short-term reward. It doesn't do you any good to think about what one could be doing, what one's giving up,” says University of Texas in Austin psychologist Bradley Love. He is also the author of a new study detailing the findings, which appears in the February issue of the respected journal Judgment and Decision Making. In the investigations, 78 participants were asked to complete no less than 250 trials, each of them featuring common decision-making situations, which average people need to undergo every day.
“It's just so seductive to choose a short-term option, because it's always better [immediately]. It's hard to see the impact of one decision over time. People have no problem doing the right long-term thing when there's a short-term reward associated with it,” Love explains. He adds that, in the experiments he conducted, participants who were told what short-term reward they would lose if they went for the long-run gratification were more likely to not follow through, and give in to temptation.