Dr. Kentaro Fujita

In other words, shutting down the emotional system and thinking very coolly and calmly about the thing in front of you in order to make the right choice.

I think what's profound about what you're saying is that you've articulated two alternatives.

One is that I fight fire with fire.

So if this thing is pulling me, I'm going to find something that's going to push me away, right?

And as you said, the example would be like there's a piece of chocolate cake and I imagine a cockroach crawling across it.

There's not actually very much research on that.

Most of the dominant models in self-control really talk about cooling your cognitions.

You're told not to fight fire with fire, that you need to be in a calm and collected state.

The reason why I think what you're saying is true is that I have some other work looking at the other strategy which is, you said, finding love.

So in my own research, we have shown that if we can get people to think about their whys,

the purposes behind their decisions, the broader purposes behind what they're doing, they're much more likely to be able to overcome the temptation.

So if there's a piece of chocolate cake in front of me and I'm trying not to eat it, if I only think about cake-related things, that could be really difficult.

But if instead I ask myself, and even if you said, oh, I'm not supposed to eat that because I'm on a diet, that doesn't have much magic to it.

It's kind of sterile, so it doesn't move me in any way.

But if instead I'm saying things like, I need to do this for my family,

I need to do this to get to my children.

I want to look good for my children's wedding photos or my children are looking at me.

I want to be a good example or all these other kinds of reasons that you might – these higher order reasons that you might have for getting healthier, being fitter or whatever, not eating the cake.

we show that that increases the odds that people will avoid the cake.

And we think it's because it's giving people meaning.