The Work and Play Lab uses methods borrowed from social psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience to understand the nature of the mental effort we use to reach our goals and the nature of leisure activities we do for fun. The lab’s research includes projects on self-control, motivation, and empathy (work) as well as projects on digital device use, social media, and recreational cannabis use (play). The lab is committed to open and transparent science, which includes publicly posting data and materials, often preregistering studies, and regularly running replication studies.
Michael Inzlicht is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, where he is also cross-appointed as a Professor in the Rotman School of Management. His research mostly focuses on effort and self-control, but he has also become interested in how people spend their leisure time. Michael is passionate about open science.
Tam, K.Y.Y. & Inzlicht, M. (in press). Fast-forward to boredom: How switching behaviour on digital media makes people more bored. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Lin, H., Westbrook, A., Fan, F., & Inzlicht, M. (2024). Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 988-1000.
Researchers conducted experiments to investigate the psychological effects of flicking by and fast-forwarding through online videos during moments of downtime
Scrolling through videos on TikTok or YouTube to avert boredom may have a decidedly unintended consequence: It can make people feel more bored, according to the paradoxical findings of a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. People seem increasingly intolerant of it, and Michael Inzlicht has a counterintuitive tip for avoiding boredom: Lean into it. Sit with the discomfort of boredom for a bit before flitting to something else. “If we’re so addicted to escaping boredom, so intolerant of boredom, it would be like a foraging animal going tree to tree, but never searching long enough to see if it bears fruit,” Inzlicht said. “Eventually, that animal will die.”
The struggle for self-control is real, and one many of us are familiar with - but is 'willpower' actually a myth? Psychology professor Michael Inzlicht has long been intrigued by how we curb our less desirable behaviours, and what it is that unites people with 'high self-control'. His research at the University of Toronto's Work and Play Lab also seeks to understand our complicated relationship with effort and empathy - and whether so-called 'empathetic AI' has a place in our future.
It’s probably all too familiar. Against your best intentions, you find yourself reaching for a late-night snack again. You snap at a colleague who didn’t really say anything wrong. You find excuses so that your daily run becomes a biweekly one. You’re convinced you don’t want to behave that way anymore, but here you are, doing it again. Psychologist Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto has long been fascinated by how we keep ourselves in check — or don’t — whether you call that willpower, self-control or something else.
Michael Inzlicht
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail
Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4
Canada
Email: michael.inzlicht@utoronto.ca
Inzlicht, M., & Roberts, B.W. (2024). Current Opinion in Psychology, 58, 101848