Great response. I have a question. To prevent harmful behaviors that can negatively impact one's future selves, should we focus on motivating individuals or making the behavior more difficult to access? For example, during last Thanksgiving, my kids collected a large amount of candy that could have lasted them for a year. My wife and I had the option to either educate our kids about the negative effects of excessive sugar consumption or simply make the candy less accessible. We chose to keep the candy out of sight, and four months later, the kids have not even thought to check if we still have any left. So the question is, should we focus on motivation or on reducing the ability to engage in harmful behavior? I am assuming precommitment devices in a way focus on increasing or inhibiting ability for a particular behavior.
Both! It is always good to making temptations more difficult to access. In tandem, teaching your kids about good decision making about things like sugar is good, too. But one of the things you should teach them is that keeping it out of sight (or out of the house) is a good way to follow through on what you know about the negative effects of sugar consumption :)
Great response. I have a question. To prevent harmful behaviors that can negatively impact one's future selves, should we focus on motivating individuals or making the behavior more difficult to access? For example, during last Thanksgiving, my kids collected a large amount of candy that could have lasted them for a year. My wife and I had the option to either educate our kids about the negative effects of excessive sugar consumption or simply make the candy less accessible. We chose to keep the candy out of sight, and four months later, the kids have not even thought to check if we still have any left. So the question is, should we focus on motivation or on reducing the ability to engage in harmful behavior? I am assuming precommitment devices in a way focus on increasing or inhibiting ability for a particular behavior.
Both! It is always good to making temptations more difficult to access. In tandem, teaching your kids about good decision making about things like sugar is good, too. But one of the things you should teach them is that keeping it out of sight (or out of the house) is a good way to follow through on what you know about the negative effects of sugar consumption :)