Willpower

Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney Penguin

Remarkable results grew out of a simple experiment conducted by an American psychologist in the 1960s, involving marshmallows and a group of four-year-olds. The children were tempted with a devilish offer: they could have one marshmallow to eat now, or wait 15 minutes and receive two. A few children heroically held out, and reaped their sweet reward.

Then an interesting thing happened. The children who had shown the greatest self-control at age four went on, years later, to score 210 points higher on the SAT than their weaker-willed friends. In fact, write the authors: 'Self-control also proved to be a better predictor of college grades than [a] student's IQ or SAT score.'

From that startling beginning, Willpower goes on to study the workings of self-control, and the various factors that can strengthen and weaken our ability to harness it in our lives. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist, and John Tierney, a science writer with The New York Times, conclude that: 'Most major problems, personal and social, centre on failure of self-control' - domestic violence, substance abuse, high divorce rates, crime and a host of other problems, large and small, that harry so many lives.

'Improving willpower,' the co-authors write, 'is the surest way to a better life.'

They proceed to drive the point home with clearly written chapters of anecdotes bolstered by science, touching on David Blaine's epics of endurance, Eric Clapton's victory over alcoholism, Oprah Winfrey's struggles with dieting, and 19th-century explorer Henry Stanley's unrelenting determination to trek through African jungles in the face of every imaginable danger.