Scientific Secrets for Self-Control

By: C. Nathan DeWall, The Great Courses

Narrated by: C. Nathan DeWall

Length: 3 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Join an expert in self-control research for six engaging and inspirational lessons that shatter the myths about willpower and replace them with verifiable science that can make the seemingly unattainable finally possible. Packed with eye-opening studies, experiments, and exercises to strengthen your self-control when dealing with money, fitness, personal relationships, and more, this course will have you wondering why you ever doubted yourself.

Whether you're looking for new ways to resist temptation, make a strong first impression, or better control your emotions, this is your guide to understanding—and mastering—what is a frequently misunderstood subject. In clear language, your award-winning professor introduces you to the general theories behind self-control: what it is, how it works, and how you can take steps to improve it.

Among the topics you'll investigate:

• How researchers discovered that delayed gratification can lead to better individual well-being in everything from higher self-worth to less sensitivity to rejection
• One of the most influential theories about how self-control works - the limited resource model, which argues that self-control relies on limited energy that becomes depleted after use
• How scientists discovered the link between the prefrontal cortex and aggression, and how people at risk for violent anger show abnormalities in that region of the brain.

Alongside groundbreaking scientific findings and research, you'll get personal exercises, activities, and thought experiments you can use to practice strengthening your self-control skills to meet whatever specific goals you want to achieve.

Disclaimer: Please note that this recording may include references to supplemental texts or print references that are not essential to the program and not supplied with your purchase.

©2013 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2013 The Great Courses

Engaging, good information

I thoroughly enjoyed the lectures that were presented in this audio book. Highly recommend this book.

excellent

the professor is to the point and scientific. not like a typical self help hypnosis bs. thanks.

Short and sweet

Unlike most of the Great Courses series - of which I have enjoyed many - this one gets right to the point and stays highly focused on a single idea. The plethora of research-based data was very reinforcing though not always cited completely which was somewhat frustrating as it means I can't reference the sources myself. The other reason I didn't give full marks was for a unnecessarily limited neurological component to the lectures. Maybe he thought it would go over some heads but I always like knowing the science behind the behavior. The helpful practices suggested are both practical and sensible. I'm trying them already.

Mediocre, At Best

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. Nothing worth sharing that you could not get from your friends and neighbors.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Start by changing the title; no science here. Better still, get a completely different approach and professor to address self-control.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Rethink his entire approach.

Did Scientific Secrets for Self-Control inspire you to do anything?

Exercise more caution in my choice of Great Courses.

Any additional comments?

Not worth the price.

Compact but valuable

I'm glad I listened to this course. I liked the practical suggestions of strategies I could employ "over the next week" to make better use of limited self control resources. Despite the narrator speaking quite slowly and pausing a lot between sentences, I think it was presented clearly and was easy to listen to.

A short overview of dealing with wants responsibly

In six 30 minutes lectures Prof. C. Nathan DeWall from the Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky, USA, gives an overview of "self-control." Throwing the net wide he starts of with the idea that it is easy to want to do something or want to restrain from doing it, yet when push comes to shove you find that you have not had enough self-control to do it. He then moves on to convince you that the good and bad role models in your life equals respectively those who were able to exercise tremendous self-control energy and those who were unable to do so. He uses various American and International examples. Was it not for Nelson Mandela that was mentioned somewhere, I wouldn't have anyone to relate to.

Be it as it may, I found lectures 4 and 5, "Taming the impulsive Beast" and "First Impressions and Stereotypes" the most interesting part of the course. He actually gave some practical exercises to help you exercise and develop your own treasury of self-control energy. Some of the experiments he referred to was also very interesting. It made me think a lot, especially how important it is for our brain to "box" people and things in order to understand the reality within which we live.

However, the course felt for me more of a self-help course, than a pure scientific approach to self-control. It felt also very short.

So by the way, this might be one of the very few Great Courses where the audio only lecture might be better than the video enhanced version. It does seem that the visual aids are a bit overdone on the video course.

So if you want a to-the-point self-help approach with a scientific underlay this course will be spot on. For me, it was interesting, but it's universality came into play already in lecture two when Prof. DeWall used examples of people with self-control within a generally American set-up. Still the psychological underlay (I suppose especially cognitive Psychology and Neuro-linguistic programming) made it worth it while.

A great book that gave me alot of understanding

I enjoyed the book! I really have a better understanding of self control and will start implementing what I have learned in my everyday life.

Are you aware of how much does self control affects you?

This course teaches you about what, why and how does self control works around your everyday.
With simple definitions to interesting examples, but above, exercises to work out your inner control; you spend a couple of hours reflecting on yourself.
Worth the pause to meditate analyzing the subject.

extremely useful

contains everything you need to know and do for getting on top of your shit

Great Short Course!

Quite an interesting and short course. Very intuitive. Thanks for the enlightenment, Great Courses. On the spot!