When faced with temptation, people think they have only two choices: to give in or to give up. Some recent research that we have conducted suggests a third possible strategy: postponement, but to an unspecified time.

This strategy works because while you are not denying yourself pleasure, you are also not giving in to the temptation now. You simply say to yourself: I can have this later. We distance ourselves from the temptation and, as our research shows, this actually decreases the desire for the item over time.

At the time of peak desire (i.e., when the temptation is right in front of you), postponing consumption reduces the motivational conflict between give-in and give-up (vice versus virtue). This allows the desire for the temptation to diminish naturally, which enables the person to forgo consumption. Thus, postponement is a “cooling-off” strategy. In the relatively long-term (i.e., a week later), people can continue to forgo the temptation because they continue to desire it less and less.

Importantly, we have shown that postponement must be nonspecific. Don’t say “I’ll have that cake tomorrow or after dinner.” Simply say “I can have the cake later.”

Vanessa Patrick is a professor of marketing at the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston and Nicole Mead is a professor in the Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics.

The scientific study of religion is an emerging field. Thus, it is natural that there are more questions than answers on the subject of how religious or God-related concepts promote self-control. There are, however, some speculations.

Kevin Rounding and I investigated the causal link between religious concepts and self-control. An interesting finding was that after subtle reminders of religious ideas, self-control appeared to have been replenished after it was diminished experimentally. That is, after performing a task that drained self-control, participants who received religious primes showed high levels of persistence in the subsequent task—they persisted with the impossible puzzles just as long as participants who had not completed the first self-control depleting task.

The psychological explanation for the replenishing effects of religious concepts on self-control, however, is currently unclear. One possibility is that religion, in many cultures, involves notions of a God who is often viewed as an omnipotent moral police who sees all, knows all, and punishes those who fall short of moral standards. Thus, it makes sense that priming people with religious concepts can bring forth the ideas of a punitive God, hence making them more resilient in the face of temptations. Some evidence has been found recently in support of this claim.

Nevertheless, ideas associated with a moralizing God are by no means the only psychological mechanism that stands between religion and self-control. As suggested by theorists, religion is a multi-dimensional construct—costly rituals, shared faith, doctrines, community, to name a few. Each of these dimensions may affect self-control in their own way. More research is required to systematically unpack and examine these components of religion.

Albert Lee is a doctoral student in psychology at Queen’s University.

Yes, absolutely! There are about a dozen published studies showing that willpower can be strengthened, as indicated by improved performance on various tests of self-control from before to after having people do willpower exercises for two weeks. The important thing to remember is that all willpower comes from the same source—so if you practice willpower in one domain, it strengthens your willpower for everything. Techniques for strengthening willpower are covered at some length in my book with John Tierney, Willpower.

Lab studies seek out the most scientifically precise procedures, so usually they select a task that has no personal relevance or meaning that can complicate the scientific interpretation of findings. For example, we might assign right-handed people to use their left hands for routine tasks, such as brushing teeth and opening doors. Outside the lab, it makes more sense to use something that will produce genuine benefits. Starting small is best. Make a simple, positive change in your life, something on the order of making your bed every day, or ceasing to say curse words. After a week or two, pick another one.

Roy Baumeister is a professor of psychology at Florida State University.

Humans are social animals by nature, and it is well-established that a sense of belonging and social connection is a fundamental human need. Obviously this sense of connection is influenced (both positively and negatively) by our family, friends, and co-workers. Amazingly, psychological research suggests that strangers can either help satisfy or threaten this sense of connection. Most experimental research on social rejection and ostracism involves individuals believing they had been rejected or ostracized by complete strangers in a laboratory setting (often without even meeting these strangers face to face). This body of research suggests that even rejection or ostracism by strangers can lead to feelings of social disconnection, a lack of control, meaninglessness, decreased self-esteem, and aggressive or anti-social behavior.

My colleagues and I have investigated the power that strangers can have over an individual’s sense of social connection, specifically the benefits of being acknowledged by a passerby and the threat of being looked at as if the individual didn’t exist. We conducted a field experiment and found that individuals who were acknowledged by a passerby (our trained research assistant) felt less social disconnection than individuals who were “looked at as though air” (the passerby looked past them instead of giving them eye contact). This field study supports data we collected in another study where participants completed diary entries every time they felt ostracized in their daily life. These participants indicated they often felt ostracized when strangers ignored them on the bus or when walking down the street, and some participants indicated they felt this way at least once a day!

Taken together, this body of research suggests that we can have both a negative and positive influence on others’ feelings of social connection. How we choose to exercise that influence is up to each of us individually.

Eric Wesselmann is a continuing lecturer in psychological sciences at Purdue University.