Many societal challenges, for example regarding health and sustainability, are conceptualized as problems of too little self-control: people's long-term goals are jeopardized (e.g., healthy weight, small carbon footprint) because one cannot resist attractive alternatives (e.g., chocolate cake, vacation in the sun). Here, we introduce a different way of conceptualizing those challenges, namely as problems of ‘too little pleasure’. We review empirical evidence showing that pleasure can support three central aspects of self-control: the initiation of long-term goal behavior, persistence in long-term goal pursuit, and resisting tempting alternatives. We close by encouraging the field to change perspectives and to include pleasure in the solution of problems that have mainly been studied as a matter of too little self-control and too much pleasure.

中文翻译：

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“愉快的自我控制”？老问题的新视角


许多社会挑战，例如关于健康和可持续性的挑战，被概念化为自我控制能力太弱的问题：人们的长期目标受到危害（例如，健康的体重、较小的碳足迹），因为人们无法抗拒有吸引力的替代品（例如，巧克力蛋糕） ，在阳光下度假）。在这里，我们引入了一种不同的方式来概念化这些挑战，即“快乐太少”的问题。我们回顾了经验证据，表明快乐可以支持自我控制的三个核心方面：长期目标行为的启动、长期目标追求的坚持以及抵制诱人的选择。最后，我们鼓励该领域改变观点，并将快乐纳入解决问题的过程中，这些问题主要被研究为自我控制太少和快乐太多的问题。