Ruminating on this today - I think it runs even deeper than what I've said, even for "soft" authority. We're all familiar with the archetype of the person who h

Ruminating on this today - I think it runs even deeper than what I've said, even for "soft" authority. We're all familiar with the archetype of the person who had overbearing parents giving them strong direction, and then has a harder time in the real world without this direction. That's a case where over-reliance on deferring to authority ends up destroying independent executive function. It's also a little weird to me to assert a dichotomy between "executive control" and "want to", when the two seem quite tied. Sure, we all use the rhetorical device of saying we have to do something that we "don't want to", but fundamentally we generally do actually want to do those things, but based on larger non-immediate concerns as opposed to immediate enjoyment.