Exercising self-control isn’t fun. If you’re dieting, for instance, you may easily resist the blueberry muffin at that impossibly aromatic bakeshop you pass by in the morning. You may then have lunch with your friends but just order a small salad (sans creamy dressing, of course). But at some point later in the day, your defenses get weaker. You find yourself declaring after dinner that, yes, you will take a look at the dessert menu. I will have a slice of that creamy cheesecake, you say. After all, what’s a little indulgence after a strenuous day of healthful living? (More on Time.com: The ‘Other’ Salt: 5 Foods Rich in Potassium) Psychologists have long observed this pattern with self-regulation. They liken a person’s self-control to a muscle’s diminishing power; that is, the more people use their limited supply of self-control to stop one behavior, the more likely they will succumb to the next temptation. New research, however, suggests that not all acts of self-control need to be tiring. Some can be vitalizing — it may all depend on your perception of the task at hand. “We can change people’s cognitions,” says Juliano Laran, the lead author of the study slated to be published in the April 2011 edition of the Journal of Consumer Research. “If people’s thoughts about what they’re doing can be changed, then people are not going to be tired. They’re not going to lack energy.” So how can people’s view of chores that require willpower be altered? It’s simpler than you might think. It all boils down to one word — fun. (More on Time.com: Fitness Tech: 10 Cool Ways to Get in Shape) In a two-part experiment, Laran and fellow marketing researcher Chris Janiszewski first asked 251 participants to make a series of hard consumer choices. One of them involved choosing a place to rent from a selection of decidedly similar apartments. All of the participants were given the same set of choices, but the task was prefaced to some by an additional sentence: “The first study … Continue reading To Keep Willpower from Flagging, Remember the F-Word: ‘Fun’