Temptation may help build willpower

This is certainly tempting news - temptation may help build will power

In a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers set out to see the effect of temptation on a group of adults, specifically a small group of female college students (OK, they're not quite adults, but they all think they are).

The students, as in all psychology studies, it seems, were not told the real purpose of the study but were merely informed that a candy maker wanted to do some research on their preferences based on a series of pictures about candy that were presented to them.

Some students, however, while filling out the questionnaires, also had bowls-full of candy placed in front of them but they were told not to eat the candy.

Later, all the students - those who had been confronted with candy and those who had not been - were again put in a lab situation, but this time they were all confronted with bowls of candy, which again, all of them were told not to eat.

According to the researchers, those women who had already been placed in the do-not-eat situation were way better than the new recruits at resisting the second verboten bowl.

Ergo: a bit of temptation may sharpen your ability to hold out when temptation comes calling again, as it always does.

Thing is, for that to work, you have to hold out the first time, too, which most of us are not that good at.