What happened
Duckworth, of the University of Pennsylvania, and her co-authors used a framework called the process model of self-control. It sorts strategies by when they act: early, by choosing or changing the situation, or later, by dealing with an impulse that is already there.
In a first study, high school students described how they handle everyday temptations. They rated the early strategies as “dramatically more effective” than the later ones.
In the second, 126 high school students each set a study goal for the coming week and were randomly given one of three instructions. One group was asked to change their environment to minimise temptations, for example by “installing online apps to block online temptations such as Facebook.” A second group was asked to “exert willpower whenever they were faced with temptation.” A third got no strategy. The first group reported meeting their goals better than both of the others.
A third study, with 159 college students, found the same pattern. It also tracked how tempted students felt during the week. Those who changed their surroundings felt less tempted, and that partly explained why they did better. The studies were published together in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
The authors note that success was self-reported rather than measured, and the goals were about studying.
What it shows
Self-control works best early, before an impulse has grown. In a review published the same year, Duckworth, Tamar Gendler and James Gross explain why: “impulses tend to grow stronger over time,” so strategies that change the situation “can nip a tempting impulse in the bud.”
The review adds that we may underrate this approach for the same reason it works: arranging our circumstances well spares us much of the in-the-moment struggle we associate with self-control.
These experiments were about studying, with students, over a week. They did not test adult content. Blocking apps were one of the example strategies the students were given.
About Unlure
How Unlure uses this
Unlure changes the situation once, in advance, so you do not have to resist every time. It works underneath every browser and app on a Windows PC or Android phone, incognito included.
It also covers search and social media. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo always filter results, YouTube stays in Restricted Mode, and images and videos from Reddit, X and Imgur are blocked while the text of Reddit and X still loads.
A changed situation only helps while it stays changed. That is why every way to undo it waits three days, while making it stricter happens at once.
This part describes Unlure. None of the sources on this page studied it.
Sources
- 1.
Duckworth, A. L., White, R. E., Matteucci, A. J., Shearer, A. and Gross, J. J. (2016). “A stitch in time: Strategic self-control in high school and college students.” Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 329–341.
- 2.
Duckworth, A. L., Gendler, T. S. and Gross, J. J. (2016). “Situational strategies for self-control.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(1), 35–55.
A wait between the urge and the way out.
Unlure blocks adult sites on your Windows PC or Android phone. Making it stricter is instant. Turning it off takes three days.