Ainslie identifies and seeks to rectify an important assumption about the construct of willpower. The goal of this commentary is to extend this clarification in two ways. First, we point out that much of the relevant literature on willpower has conflated willpower with self-control, leading to a lack of clarity around how best to identify ways to help people overcome self-control problems.

Second, we point out an important and often overlooked distinction between upstream and downstream self-control strategies and discuss the ways in which this distinction helps further Ainslie's distinction and research on self-control more generally.

Behavioral science research has often referred to “willpower” as synonymous with “self-control” (Duckworth & Kern, Reference Duckworth and Kern2011; Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, Reference Inzlicht, Schmeichel and Macrae2014; Lian, Yam, Ferris, & Brown, Reference Lian, Yam, Ferris and Brown2017; Metcalfe & Mischel, Reference Metcalfe and Mischel1999). Although one could argue this conflation is merely semantic, we propose that it also obscures a theoretically important distinction. Willpower is the internal “brute-force” approach to a self-regulation problem (Duckworth, Milkman, & Laibson, Reference Duckworth, Milkman and Laibson2018), namely resisting temptation in the moment (which can be described by Ainslie's two functions of “resolve” and “suppression”). If “willpower” is used interchangeably with “self-control,” then one could wrongfully conclude that all self-control activities are a form of willpower.

This, however, is not the case (for a thorough review, see Duckworth et al., Reference Duckworth, Milkman and Laibson2018). As Ainslie himself claims: “means of forestalling changes of preference in advance (for instance, Duckworth et al., Reference Duckworth, Gendler and Gross2016) are straightforward, and are not usually counted as forms of willpower.” But are they a form of self-control? We argue that they are. In particular, the Duckworth et al. (Reference Duckworth, Gendler and Gross2016) paper Ainslie references includes the five categories proposed in the process model of emotion regulation (situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation; Gross, Reference Gross1998). Two of these categories are identified as situational self-control strategies that must take place in advance of facing a temptation directly. We refer to these advanced actions (situation selection and situation modification) as “upstream” activities because they take place well before one encounters a temptation and can ultimately change the likelihood of encountering the temptation at all. We identify the remaining three categories (attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation) as “downstream” activities, as they occur later, when one is already face-to-face with the temptation. Willpower (and Ainslie's two sub-categorizations of willpower) would clearly fall under the category of “downstream” self-control actions.

This has implications for how we study, design, and promote interventions aimed at increasing self-control. In particular, one of the primary reasons we feel the need to emphasize that willpower is not the only strategy to combat self-control problems is because empirical research has demonstrated that willpower is, in fact, one of the least effective ways to do so (see Fujita, Orvell, & Kross, Reference Fujita, Orvell and Kross2020). Instead, upstream situational strategies that help people achieve their goals while circumventing the “need for willpower” altogether are typically more fruitful (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, Reference Duckworth, Gendler and Gross2016; Ent, Baumeister, & Tice, Reference Ent, Baumeister and Tice2015). These include strategies such as defaulting people into workplace retirement savings plans (Madrian & Shea, Reference Madrian and Shea2001), reformulating processed foods to have less salt (Regan et al., Reference Regan, Kent, Raats, McConnon, Wall and Dubois2017), and externally-imposing deadlines that prevent people from procrastinating (Ariely & Wertenbroch, Reference Ariely and Wertenbroch2002). As a case in point, people who score high on the psychological trait of “self-control” are not any better at resisting temptation or deploying willpower; they have simply created situations where they are less likely to experience temptation (and thus do not need to resist it very often) (Adriaanse, Kroese, Gillebaart, & De Ridder, Reference Adriaanse, Kroese, Gillebaart and De Ridder2014; Galla & Duckworth, Reference Galla and Duckworth2015; Hofmann, Baumeister, Förster, & Vohs, Reference Hofmann, Baumeister, Förster and Vohs2012).

Beyond being an important distinction for understanding the most effective ways of dealing with self-control problems, we believe that the conflation of willpower with self-control may also affect lay beliefs about how to overcome such problems. Despite their effectiveness for achieving self-control, people often fail to employ situational or upstream strategies for themselves (Ashraf, Karlan, & Yin, Reference Ashraf, Karlan and Yin2006; Giné, Karlan, & Zinman, Reference Giné, Karlan and Zinman2010; Marotta & Acquisti, Reference Marotta and Acquisti2017; Moser, Schoenebeck, & Resnick, Reference Moser, Schoenebeck and Resnick2019; Royer, Stehr, & Sydnor, Reference Royer, Stehr and Sydnor2015) and others (Blount & Larrick, Reference Blount and Larrick2000; Daniels & Zlatev, Reference Daniels and Zlatev2019; Zlatev, Daniels, Kim, & Neale, Reference Zlatev, Daniels, Kim and Neale2017). Distinguishing willpower from upstream strategies enables us to ask whether people instead prefer to resolve self-control problems using willpower and, if so, why this is the case. We believe that these are important questions that future research should attempt to answer.

In all, the distinctions between willpower and self-control and between upstream and downstream strategies add further context to the important clarification Ainslie offers in his target article.