It’s tempting to think about the self-control system as being the infinitely superior “self,” and our more primitive instincts as an embarrassing vestige of our evolutionary past. Sure, back when our knuckles dragged in the dirt, those instincts helped us survive long enough to pass on our genes. But now they just get in the way, leading to health problems, empty bank accounts, and sexual encounters we have to apologize for on national television. If only we civilized creatures weren’t still burdened with the drives of our long-ago ancestors.
Not so fast. Though our survival system doesn’t always work to our advantage, it is a mistake to think we should conquer the primitive self completely. Medical case studies of people who have lost these instincts through brain damage reveal how crucial our primitive fears and desires are for health, happiness, and even self-control. One of the strangest cases involved a young woman who had part of her midbrain destroyed during brain surgery to stop seizures. She appeared to lose the ability to feel fear and disgust, which robbed her of two of the most instinctive sources of self-restraint. She developed a habit of stuffing herself with food until she got sick, and could frequently be found sexually propositioning family members. Not exactly a model of self-control!
As we’ll see throughout this book, without desires we’d become depressed, and without fear, we’d fail to protect ourselves from future danger. Part of succeeding at your willpower challenges will be finding a way to take advantage of, and not fight, such primitive instincts. Neuroeconomics scientists who study what the brain does when we make decisions—have discovered that the self-control system and our survival instincts don’t always conflict. In some cases, they cooperate to help us make good decisions. For example, imagine that you’re walking through a department store, and something shiny catches your eye. Your primitive brain shrieks, “Buy it!” Then you check out the price tag: $199.99. Before you saw the outrageous price, you would have needed some serious prefrontal cortex intervention to shut down the spending impulse. But what if your brain registers an instinctive pain response to the price? Studies show that this actually happens —the brain can treat a hefty price tag like a physical punch to the gut. That instinctive shock is going to make the job easy for your prefrontal cortex, and you’ll barely need to exert any “I won’t” power. As we aim to improve our willpower, we’ll look for ways to use every bit of what it means to be human —including our most primitive instincts, from the desire for pleasure to the need to fit in—to support our goals.
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