For example, research by Professor Benartzi and Richard H. Thaler, an economics professor at the University of Chicago — and a regular contributor to Sunday Business — found that people were generally likely to save more if asked to “precommit” to doing so in the future. Their findings have been incorporated in many 401(k) plans.

Image Candor from financial advisers builds trust with clients, Shlomo Benartzi says. Credit... John Nelson

By agreeing to deduct a certain amount of money from your paycheck starting next Jan. 1 and to increase the deduction every New Year’s Day thereafter, you can procrastinate — you don’t have to do anything now — yet increase your savings substantially. And if those increases coincide with raises, your take-home pay won’t decline, avoiding “the mind’s hypersensitivity to loss,” the paper says.

You can also opt out freely — which may make you more comfortable with the plan in the first place.

The new paper takes precommitment strategies much further, advocating, for example, a “Ulysses contract” — or a “commitment memorandum” that spells out what to do when the markets move 25 percent up or down. The adviser and the investor are both supposed to sign it — agreeing in advance, perhaps, to buy more stocks in a market plunge, and not to sell. Conversely, when markets soar, they may be committed to selling overvalued stocks, not buying more of them — rebalancing the portfolio to restore an agreed-upon asset mix.

The concept of resisting temptation this way is at least as old Homer. In “The Odyssey,” Ulysses had his crew bind him to the mast and agree in advance to ignore his entreaties before sailing near the Sirens, whose songs were irresistible. It worked for Ulysses. Whether contemporary investors are ready for the strategy is another question.

“The idea is great, but it may be a little aggressive for many people,” said Bud Pernoll, senior managing director of Bay Mutual Financial, an independent financial advisory firm in Santa Monica, Calif. Many individuals and some companies will balk at signing a “contract” that might seem to limit their flexibility, he said, even though the strategy makes a lot of sense.

Mr. Pernoll is a fan of behavioral finance and its concepts, but he says the field is in its infancy and is just beginning to be absorbed by financial practitioners.

The Ulysses contract is deliberately provocative, Professor Benartzi said. It “forces you to think in advance — both adviser and client — and put a plan in writing and explain, when you’re tempted to take an action, how it fits into your plan.” He added that “the flip side — controlling the intuitive mind” so it doesn’t do damage — is important, too.