1. “the idea of free will, which the researchers define as the belief that a person is largely responsible for his or her own outcomes”; that’s a pretty expansive definition of ‘free will’. We could have all the free will in the world without the ability to overcome obstacles set in our way by nature, other men, or fate. Seeing whether that is the case is life. I can only assume, to whatever extent Americans, even conservatives, agree with this, that this represents the peculiar optimism native to Americans.

2. Similarly, “Strength of mind can always overcome the body’s desires” and “People can overcome any obstacles if they truly want to.” These are wildly different standards. Overcoming one’s own desires ['the body's desires' is tendentious] is hard, but at least no one else is working against you. It can be done. Overcoming “any obstacles” requires also being smarter and/or stronger than numberless competitors in life and also having the luck to overcome random chance.

In the 1990s a group of conservative Christian men held a rally on the Mall in DC. Hundreds of thousands attended. I think it was called Stand in the Gap. The park police said they were the cleanest, most well-behaved crowd they ever had on the Mall.

Contrast with any gathering of liberals. Obama inauguration, Occupy protests, the recent Portland protesters against Shell, etc. Nothing but trash and debris everywhere.

Say, here’s another way to measure “self control”: Give the subjects a women’s magazine sort of “How [positive personality trait] are you?” questionnaire. Then assert the equivalence of a low score on the questionnaire and “self control”. Or high score. Either way.