Self Control Monica Llobera 2014

8/13/2019 Self Control Monica Llobera 2014

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Master in Research in Behavior and

Cognition

Monica Llobera Ramrez

20/01/2014

SELF-CONTROL:A differential perspective


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I can resist everything except temptation

Oscar Wilde


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1. Conceptual definition and limits

Several authors have noted the challenge of defining and measuring self-control (also referredto as self-regulation, self-discipline, willpower, effortful control, ego strength and inhibitorycontrol, among other terms) and its converse, impulsivity or impulsiveness. (Duckworth, 2011).

Interest in self-control unites all the social and behavioral sciences. Self-control is an umbrellaconstruct that bridges concepts and measurements from different disciplines (e.g. impulsivity,conscientiousness, self-regulation, delay of gratification, inattention-hyperactivity, executivefunction, willpower, intertemporal choice). (Moffit, 2011)

The concept of self-control was defined for the first time in 1973 by the AmericanPsychological Association as the ability to suppress or the practise of suppression of an

impulsive reaction of a behavior, desire or emotion (Sisto, 2010). But before this definition,three different intellectual approaches investigated self-control; the psychoanalytic approachby Freud, the theory of learning by Skinner and the soviet neuropsychology by Luria andVygostsky.

Nowadays, according to Duckworth (2011), self-control is the idea of voluntary self-governance in the service of personally valued goals and standards. Similar to this definition,Baumeister, Vohs and Tice (2007) define self-control as the capacity for altering o nes ownresponses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals andsocial expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals.

From this point of view, self-control should contribute to producing a broad range of positiveoutcomes in life. In fact, empirical evidence indicates that people with high dispositional self-control should have better outcomes in various spheres. (Tangney, 2004)

Distinguishing self-control (high and/or low) from other concepts:

Many authors refer self-control and self-regulation as the same construct. Many othersdistinguish between them and say that self-control is only one part of self-regulation, like forexample, De Lisi (2013) as the next figure shows.

Figure 1. Nomological network of self-regulation constructs. (De Lisi, 2013)


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delay-of-gratification paradigm to measure preschoolers ability to delay gratification as apredictor for consequential social, cognitive and mental health outcomes over the life course.(Mischel, 2011)

Performance in delay tasks has been shown to predict academic achievement, drug use and

aggressive and delinquent behavior (Duckworth, 2011; Mischel, 2011).

Self and informant-report personality questionnaires:

Some examples of this questionnaires would be the Self-Control Scale (Malouf, 2013)(Tangney, 2004) , the Eysenck I 7 Impulsiveness Scale (Duckworth, 2011) or the BarrattImpulsivity Scale (Tangney, 2004)

In a study made by Moffit (2011), childr ens self -control during their first decade of life was

measured using nine measures of self- control: observational ratings of childrens lack ofcontrol (3 and 5 years of age) and parent, teacher, and self-reports of impulsive aggression,hyperactivity, lack of persistence, inattention and impulsivity (5, 7, 9 and 11 years old). Thenine measures were positively and significantly correlated.

Health, wealth and crime outcomes were assessed at age 32 by physical examinations, bloodtests, personal interviews, record searches and informant reports.

Self and informant personality questionnaires measures of self-control have been shown topredict academic achievement, physical health, wealth, juvenile delinquency, criminal activity

in adulthood and longevity (Duckworth, 2011) (Moffit, 2011).

Environmental-Risk twin study (E-Risk). It addresses (1) which specific environmental riskfactors contribute to the early emergence of disruptive behaviour, (2) whether environmentalrisk factors interact with genetic risk to influence disruptive behaviour, (3) whether and howchild-specific parenting experiences explain differences in behavioural outcomes betweenchildren in the same family, (4) how the effects of ris k are mediated through childrensneuropsychological executive functions, social-information processing, and verbal skills.

3. Dispositional vision, origin and development of the self-control

Many authors have pointed out different aspects when talking about self-control.

Whiteside and Lynams (2001) UPPS model situates facets of self -control within the five-factormodel of personality, relating urgency to neuroticism, perseverance and planning toconscientiousness, and sensation seeking to extraversion (Duckworth, 2011). Many authorsconsider self-control to be coextensive with Big Five conscientiousness (Duckworth (2011);

Moffit, (2011)).


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Tangney found some dispositional features related to self-control. Just as Moffit (2011) andDuckworth (2011) said, Tangney et al.(2004) found a positive correlation between the Big Fivefactor of conscientiousness and self-control (see table 2, pag. 6).

Table 2. Relationship of self-control to the Big Five and perfectionism (from Tangney, 2004)

They related some psychopathology symptoms with a low self-control. They also found asignificant positive correlation between self-control and the Rosenberg self-esteem scalewhich means that people with high self-control apparently accept themselves as valuable,worthy individuals and are relatively well able to sustain this favorable view of self across time

and circumstances. Another finding was that people with good capacity for self-control werealso emotional stable. Relative to the interpersonal domain, they found that those participants


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who reported a positive family environment in their family of origin had higher self-control,compared with those with dysfunctional families.

Caspi (2000) also found the same relation between consciousness and self-control and a highstability in their personality traits as well as good predictors of their outcomes.

Figure 3 and 4. Relation between self-control and the three styles of personality (Caspi, 2000)


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In a more phisiological point of view, through magnetic resonance imaging it has beenidentified areas of the brain that become differentially activated when people engage in theprocess of self-regulation, as well as connections among areas of the brain that seem to play a

key role in the tasks implicated in the process. Specifically, Mischel et al. (2011) predicted thatparticipants with consistently low levels of self-control, compared with their consistently high-control counterparts, would be characterized by less refined connectivity in frontostriatal andfrontoparietal circuitry. Heatherton and Wagner (2011) suggest that the problems in self-regulation are due to failures in the prefrontal cortex or because of the influence on reward.

Behavioral geneticists have also shown that self-control is under both genetic andenvironmental influences. (Moffit, 2011). Bouchard and McGue (2003) said that the

differences between individuals is composed by an additive function of genetic effects, sharedenvironmental effects and nonshared environmental effects. When they talk aboutpersonality, they conclude saying that genetic influences account for about 40-55% of variance(although he also says that the results can only generalized to populations exposed to a rangeof environments similar to those studied). So, taking into account the authors, we could saythat self-control has a great part of heradibility.

The study carried out by Moffit (2011) to siblings followed up to age of 12, showed that the 5-y-old sibling with poorer self-control was significantly more likely to begin smoking as a 12-y-old (a precursor of adult ill health), perform poorly in school (a precursor of adult wealth) and

engage in antisocial behaviors (a precursor of adult crime), and these findings remainedsignificant even after controlling for sibling differences in IQ.

Dunedin study children with greater self-control were more likely to have been brought up insocioeconomically advantaged families (r=0.25, p


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So, we can conclude that self-control is a multidimensional trait, a stable trait that starts in theearly childhood and remain quite stable during the lifetime and which involves situational,perceptual, cognitive aspects, attitudes and motivations.

4. Consequences

Interve ntions addressing self-control might reduce a panoply of societal costs, save taxpayersmoney and promote prosperity (Moffit, 2011)

Moffit says that even after ac counting for study members differences in social status and IQ,

children as young as three who scored lower on measures of self-control were more likely thanchildren with higher self-control to have the following outcomes as adults:

Table 3. Results for adult outcomes related with self-control (Moffit, 2011)

Predicting Health

Childhood self-control predicted adult health problems, (including poorer lung function,sexually transmitted infections, obesity, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, dental disease)even after accounting for social class origins and IQ. In the same way, Roberts et al. (2007)

found that high scores in consciousness as a good protector of early death.


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As adults, children with poor self-control were not at elevated risk for depression. They hadelevated risk for substance dependence (including tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and harderdrugs).

Predicting Wealth

Poor self-control offered significant incremental validity in predicting the socioeconomicposition they achieved and the income they earned.

At the age of 32, children with poor self-control were less financially planful. Compared withother 32-y-olds, they were less likely to save and had acquired fewer financial building blocksfor the future. They reported more money-management difficulties and had accumulatedmore credit problems (including savings habits, home ownership, investments, retirementplans).

Predicting crime

Children with poor self-control were more likely to be convicted of a criminal offense, evenafter accounting for social class origins and IQ. According to that, Denson et al. (2012) assessedthe relation between aggressiveness and self-control and they found that people who hadbeing trained to increase their self-control where less aggressive. However, they alsomentioned the importance to determine when self-control increases aggression rather than

decreases considering that many premeditated acts of aggression or terrorism requireexceptional self-control to resist the urge to retaliate immediately, to plan an attack years inadvance or to force oneself to enact brutal behaviors. And they put as an example the trainingmilitary personnel who need self-control to override inhibitions toward harming others.

Self-control and Adolescent Mistakes: data collected at the ages of 13, 15, 18 and 21 showedthat children with poor self-control were more likely to make mistakes as adolescents,resulting in snares that trapped them in harmful lifestyles.

Rearing a child in a single-parent household


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(Moffit, 2011)

Mischel (2011) found that preschool delay ability continued to predict later outcomes inadulthood including higher educational achievement, higher sense of self-worth, better abilityto cope with stress and less substance abuse and seems to buffer against the development of aa variety of dispositional vulnerabilities later in life, such as features of borderline personalitydisorder. (Mischel, 2011)

Self-control would bring, according to (Bouchard, 2003)and (Ozer, 2006), a certain choice inoccupational interests (conventional in our case) as well as satisfaction and good performanceat work. Bouchard also mention the influence of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) insatisfaction at work. (Baumeister R. a., 2007) refers to motivation as a basic aspect in life andself-control as the vital function to manage conflicts between inner motivations and externalconstraints and inner motives. So, according to that, people with a good level of self-control,will be more consistent with their motivations and will be more succesful in their lifes.

According to Tangney (2004), and very similar to what other authors have found:

People with high self-control had better grades, as compared with people low in self-control.People with high self-control showed fewer impulse control problems.They showed better psychological adjustment.


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They also had higher self-acceptance or self-esteem, which is often regarded as a vital aspectof mental health and adjustment.High self-control was correlated with better interpersonal relationships, as indicated by betterfamily cohesion and less family conflict.In addition, people with high self-control reported less anger and better management of angerwhen they do get angry.


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5. References

Baumeister, R. a. (2007). Self-regulation, ego depletion and motivation. Social and PersonalityPsychology Compass , 1-14.

Baumeister, R. V. (2007). The strength model of Self-Control. Current directions in psychological science, 16 (6), 351-355.

Bouchard, T. a. (January de 2003). Genetic and environmental influences on humanpsychological differences. Journal of Neurobiology, 54 (1), 4-45.

Caspi, A. (2000). The Child is father of the man: Personality Continuities from childhood toadulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78 (1), 158-172.

De Lisi, M. (2013). Pandora's Box: the consequences of low self-control into adulthood. En C. a.Gibson, Handbook of life-course criminology (pgs. 261-273). New York: Springer.

Denson, T. D. (2012). Self-control and aggression. Association for psychological science, 21 (1),20-25.

Duckworth, A. a. (1 de June de 2011). A Meta-Analysis of the convergent validity of self-controlmeasures. Journal of Research in Personality, 45 (3), 259-268.

Eigsti, I. Z. (2004). Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and youngadulthood. Psychological science, 17 (6), 478-484.

Heatherton, T. a. (March de 2011). Cognitive neuroscience of self-regulation failure. Trends inCognitive Sciences, 15 (3), 132-139.

Malouf, E. S. (2013). The Brief Self-Control Scale predicts jail inmates' recidivism, substancedependence and post-release adjustment. Personality and Social Psychology bulletin

XX (X), 1-14.

Mischel, W. A. (2011). 'Willpower' over the life span: decomposing self-regulation. SCAN(6),252-256.

Moffit, T. A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and publicsafety. PNAS vol.108, no. 7 , 2693-2698.

Ozer, D. a.-M. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annualreviews of psychology, 57 , 401-421.

Roberts, B. K. (2007). The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits,socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes.Perspectives on psychological science, 2 (4), 313- 345.

Sisto, F. M. (2010). Relation between self-control and self-concept in child and young.Liberabit, 16 (2), 217-226.


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Tangney, J. B. (April de 2004). High Self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology,better grades and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality, 72 (2), 271-324.

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Self Control Monica Llobera 2014