I just spent a week in the company of friends—and a full package of Chips Ahoy!
“Who ate all the cookies?“ my wife asked on our long drive home. “I think I ate maybe one of them.”
As she well knew, the question was partly rhetorical:
I ate them (or many of them).
I thought that a package of processed cookies on the kitchen counter would be no big deal—but as always, I fell for the restraint bias.
Restraint bias refers to the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to resist the temptation of an impulsive behavior. The bias figures prominently in the psychology of addiction—but no one is really excepted from it.
A package of cookies in view, for instance, is not something I can easily ignore.
Taylor Coe 