Molly Crockett
Molly Crockett is a professor of psychology working on self-control and the neuroscience of decision-making. She appears on this site twice over. She is a co-author on both of the Matthew Lieberman papers this publication uses on putting feelings into words, the founding 2007 study and the 2011 study on what people expect that to do to them. She is also the first author of a 2013 study in Neuron on precommitment, which is the only published experiment behind this site's account of binding your future self rather than resisting in the moment.
Who they are
The vault records her as having been interviewed at Yale by Johann Hari for Stolen Focus. No current post has been confirmed here, and none is claimed.
Precommitment, in plain words, is arranging things in advance so that the tempting option is not available later, rather than relying on willpower when the moment arrives. It is the old trick of Ulysses and the mast, which is why this site also files it under that name.
Key papers
Crockett, M. J., et al. (2013). "Restricting temptations: neural mechanisms of precommitment", Neuron, 79(2), 391. First author. Men could take a mildly rewarding image straight away or wait for a better one. One arrangement asked them to resist in the moment. The other let them commit in advance. Committing in advance worked considerably better than resisting.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). "Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli", Psychological Science, 18(5), 421 to 428. Third author on the founding study of the whole line of work.
Lieberman, M. D., Inagaki, T. K., Tabibnia, G., & Crockett, M. J. (2011). "Subjective responses to emotional stimuli during labeling, reappraisal, and distraction", Emotion, 11(3), 468 to 480. People predicted that naming a feeling would make them feel worse. It made them feel better, and the prediction survived the experience.
Key ideas
The precommitment study supplies the experiment this site's account of the idea previously lacked. Before it, the case rested on a popular taxonomy and a handful of writers' anecdotes. This is a peer-reviewed study about exactly the mechanism.
No size is claimed for it here. Stolen Focus calls precommitment "much more successful" and prints no figures, so that adjective is the author's characterisation and not a measurement. Anything quoted goes to the paper.
It has a scope limit worth saying before anybody generalises it. The participants were men, the temptation was a single immediate one under laboratory conditions, and skipping a picture is not the same task as staying off a phone for a working week. The study establishes a mechanism, not a life outcome.
Why the mechanism matters more than its size. If precommitment works by removing the option rather than by strengthening resistance, its value does not depend on which theory of willpower turns out to be correct, which is a considerable advantage given how badly ego depletion has fared.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- Crockett, M. J., et al. (2013). Neuron, 79(2), 391.
- Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Psychological Science, 18(5), 421 to 428.
- Lieberman, M. D., Inagaki, T. K., Tabibnia, G., & Crockett, M. J. (2011). Emotion, 11(3), 468 to 480.
- Stolen Focus, read 2026-09-03, where the 2013 study is described and no figures are given. No current affiliation verified.