Just because you're good at this self-control thing here doesn't mean you're going to be good over there. I've always studied like the situation how can we change the situation what are the tools and techniques that an individual can use. My friend Angela Duckworth who's a brilliant psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania has studied self-control as a personality trait. The correlation is not very high across domains, she says. There's areas where we're good and where we're bad and we struggle with different things it's part of why I also find the study of change so interesting.
Behavioral scientist Katy Milkman of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania talks about her book How to Change with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. What can we learn from research in psychology and behavioral economics about breaking the habits we want to change? Is that research reliable? And should Russ Roberts accept being overweight or keep working at finding the thinner man trying to get out?