Reply to commentaries to willpower with and without effort

Abstract

Twenty-six commentators from several disciplines have written on the assumption that choice is determined by comparative valuation in a common denominator of reward, the “competitive marketplace.” There was no apparent disagreement that prospective rewards are discounted hyperbolically, although some found that the resulting predictions could come just as well from other models, including the interpretation of delay as risk and analysis in terms of hot versus cold valuation systems. Several novel ideas emerged.

More than two intuitions

“…5). Other authors have pointed out obvious problems with the dual approach: If there are distinct systems, there must be more than two of them, because the properties attributed to the two systems do not reliably occur together (Zbrodoff & Logan, 1986); in particular, automatic processes may or may not be affectively arousing (Ainslie, 2021). Furthermore, the listed properties such as effort, affect, and speed itself are themselves continua.…”