Is There Any Science Behind Willpower? Possibly, and It Could Influence Long-Term Goals

There’s a birthday cake in the conference room. A dish of candy at the reception desk. A box of Girl Scout cookies someone left in the break room with a note reading “help yourself!”

Although some people may cheerfully think, ‘don’t mind if I do’ while snatching a Samoa, others may try to avoid the treats only to give in to temptation later in the day. With a cookie in hand, they may announce they simply have no willpower around chocolate.

Motivational psychologists are finding that it’s not just whether a person believes they have willpower. The amount of willpower a person believes they possess can influence both everyday choices and larger goal-setting.

“When people say things like ‘I have no willpower with cake’ or ‘I have no willpower with social media,’ that highlights something important — even though our beliefs about willpower can be fairly general and shape how we approach self-control, that does not mean someone is equally good at self-control in every area of life,” Christopher Mylnski, a faculty member at the University of Vienna in motivational psychology, told Discover.

What Is Willpower?

Willpower is how a person perceives self-control, and according to a 2026 study from the Journal of Experimental Psychology, beliefs in willpower can shape how people approach tasks. This can relate to self-discipline around daily challenges, like: do I have the willpower to go to the gym at 6 a.m.? Or do I have the willpower to not eat the whole basket of tortilla chips?

Beliefs in willpower also shape a person’s goal-setting actions. People who didn’t see a limit to their willpower put more effort into choices regarding health, educational attainment, and even the environment, according to a 2024 study in Motivation Science.

Willpower is a complicated belief: a person may think they have self-control in one area, such as going to the gym, but not in another, like eating Thin Mints.

How to Measure Willpower

In recent years, scientists have found that how much willpower a person believes they possess can influence whether they believe they can resist temptation or achieve goals, according to a 2015 study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

If a person believes willpower is unlimited, they are more likely to work toward a goal. But if they think that willpower is a finite resource, then they are more likely to take breaks, work more slowly, and have lower expectations.

A person may also be willing to give up or give in if they believe willpower is a depleting resource. For example, if a person feels tired in the afternoon, they may feel they no longer have the willpower to resist the urge to help themselves to a slice of cake in the break room.

“That is especially problematic because when someone sees temptations as impossible to resist, the importance of their goal does not really matter anymore. In their mind, it is no longer a question of motivation; it becomes a question of whether resisting is possible at all,” Mylnski said to Discover.

Tapping into Willpower

Whether we view willpower as an unlimited or finite resource can impact how much a person is willing to challenge themselves. In the 2026 Journal of Experimental Psychology study, participants answered questions regarding their beliefs in willpower. They were then tasked with solving math problems. Participants who believed willpower was an unlimited resource were more willing to challenge themselves and take on more problems.

Participants who thought willpower was in short supply were less likely to increase the difficulty.

But having a view that willpower is unlimited doesn’t mean a person won’t ever give in to cravings or won’t challenge themselves. Rather, it means they are less likely to view self-control as impossible.

“The key difference is that they do not interpret those moments as proof that self-control is impossible due to a depleted resource; they are more likely to see them as situations where the temptation was unusually difficult or not worth resisting in that moment,” Mylnski told Discover.

Read More: Macaque Monkeys Could Unlock the Brain Secrets Behind Motivation — and Inspire New Mental Health Treatments

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article: