Michael Inzlicht is a Research Excellence Faculty Scholar at the University of Toronto. His primary appointment is as Professor in the Department of Psychology, but he is also cross-appointed as Professor in the Department of Marketing at the Rotman School of Management. Michael conducts research that sits at the boundaries of social psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Although he has published papers on numerous topics, his current research interests concern work and play. His research on work or effort is mostly on the topics of self-control and motivation, but also includes research on the mentally demanding nature of empathy and compassion. His work on play or leisure is a relatively new direction for Michael and includes research on social media, puzzles (e.g., crosswords, Sudoku), and recreational drug use.
Michael completed his B.Sc. in Anatomical Sciences at McGill University in 1994, his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Brown University in 2001, and his postdoctoral fellowship in Applied Psychology at New York University in 2004. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and edited two books. His work has been featured in media outlets around the world, including The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, BBC News, TIME, The Daily Telegraph, and the CBC, among many others. His research and teaching have been recognized with the Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize, the SPSSI Louise Kidder Early Career Award, the Ontario government's Early Researcher Award, the ISCON Best Social Cognition Paper Award, the Principal's Research Award (University of Toronto Scarborough), and the UofT Scarborough Professor of the Year Award.
Michael is a first-generation college student.
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Every strenuous exercise involves some mixture of suffering and pleasure. The key to sticking with it is getting the balance right
“People avoid effort, but it’s also something that we can learn to like,” said Michael Inzlicht, a colleague of Dr. Bloom’s at the University of Toronto. In addition to pleasure, humans seek out things like competence, mastery and self-understanding. “You can’t get those without pushing yourself,” he said.
New research suggests we can train our brain to value making an effort and not just the outcome
Effort “just feels bad, and we tend to avoid it. That’s why it’s costly,” said Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Yet at the same time, “there’s something about pushing yourself that seems to be valuable and enjoyable as well.” One obvious reason we make an effort is for the end product, be it a championship trophy, personal record or end-of-year bonus. Generally, “in the real world, the harder you work, the more rewards you tend to get,” Inzlicht said.
Collaborators
- Joshua Aronson, New York University
- Avi Ben-Zeev, San Francisco State University
- Elliot Berkman, University of Oregon
- Kirk Brown, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Daryl Cameron, Penn State University
- Belle Derks, Utrecht University
- Jennifer Gutsell, Brandeis University
- Greg Hajcak, Florida State University
- Eddie Harmon-Jones, University of New South Wales
- Jacob Hirsh, University of Toronto
- Cendri Hutcherson, University of Toronto
- Sonia Kang, University of Toronto
- Michael Larson, Brigham Young University
- Lisa Legault, Clarkson University
- Ian McGregor, University of Waterloo
- Marina Milyavskaya, Carleton University
- Sukhvinder Obhi, McMaster University
- Liz Page-Gould, University of Toronto
- Travis Proulx, Cardiff University
- Blair Saunders, University of Dundee
- Brandon Schmeichel, Texas A&M University
- Zindel Segal, University of Toronto
- Alexa Tullett, University of Alabama
University of Toronto
Organizations
- Association for Psychological Science
- Canadian Psychological Association
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- International Social Cognition Network
- International Society for Research on Emotion
- National Academy of Education
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Social and Affective Neuroscience Society
- Social Psychology Network
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
- Society for Personality and Social Psychology
- Society for Psychophysiological Research
- Spencer Foundation
‘People would rather shock themselves than spend 15 minutes alone with their thoughts’ — could you handle the ‘bed rotting’ trend?
Over the past few years, wellness advocates have championed “niksen” (the Dutch art of doing nothing) as an antidote to burnout. Before that, we had il dolce far niente, a 200-plus-year-old Italian phrase that refers to the pleasures of doing nothing: a romantic concept that enjoyed a little comeback when it was name-checked in the 2010 movie “Eat, Pray, Love.” “Actually doing nothing is something a lot of people find aversive,” explained Michael Inzlicht, a professor in the University of Toronto’s department of psychology. “People associate doing nothing with boredom, which is an emotion most people try to avoid.”
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