scholarly journals Quantifying the subjective cost of self-control in humans

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (35) ◽  
pp. e2018726118
Author(s):  
Candace M. Raio ◽  
Paul W. Glimcher
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Stress Exposure ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
Control Research ◽  
Control Failure ◽  
The Cost

Since Odysseus committed to resisting the Sirens, mechanisms to limit self-control failure have been a central feature of human behavior. Psychologists have long argued that the use of self-control is an effortful process and, more recently, that its failure arises when the cognitive costs of self-control outweigh its perceived benefits. In a similar way, economists have argued that sophisticated choosers can adopt “precommitment strategies” that tie the hands of their future selves in order to reduce these costs. Yet, we still lack an empirical tool to quantify and demonstrate the cost of self-control. Here, we develop and validate an economic decision-making task to quantify the subjective cost of self-control by determining the monetary cost a person is willing to incur in order to eliminate the need for self-control. We find that humans will pay to avoid having to exert self-control in a way that scales with increasing levels of temptation and that these costs appear to be modulated both by motivational incentives and stress exposure. Our psychophysical approach allows us to index moment-to-moment self-control costs at the within-subject level, validating important theoretical work across multiple disciplines and opening avenues of self-control research in healthy and clinical populations.

scholarly journals Quantifying the subjective cost of self-control in humans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candace M. Raio ◽  
Paul W. Glimcher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Stress Exposure ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Control Research

ABSTRACTSince Odysseus committed to resisting the Sirens, mechanisms to limit self-control failure have been a central feature of human behavior. Psychologists have long argued that the use of self-control is an effortful process and, more recently, that its failure arises when the cognitive costs of self-control outweigh its perceived benefits. In a similar way, economists have argued that sophisticated choosers can adopt “pre-commitment strategies” that that tie the hands of their future selves in order to reduce these costs. Yet, we still lack an empirical tool to quantify and demonstrate the cost of self-control. Here, we develop and validate a novel economic decision-making task to quantify the subjective cost of self-control by determining the monetary cost a person is willing to incur in order to eliminate the need for self-control. We find that humans will pay to avoid having to exert self-control in a way that scales with increasing levels of temptation and that these costs are modulated both by motivational incentives and stress exposure. Our psychophysical approach allows us to index moment-to-moment self-control costs at the within-subject level, validating important theoretical work across multiple disciplines and opening new avenues of self-control research in healthy and clinical populations.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe failure to use self-control is a fundamental problem that humans face in daily life. Recent work suggests that these ‘failures’ might be better understood as a rational decision-making process that weighs the benefits of exercising self-control against its attendant cognitive costs. However, we still know little about how to measure these costs or how they change under different circumstances. Across five independent studies, we find that self-control costs can be measured in humans through monetary willingness to pay to avoid temptation and further, that these costs are sensitive to motivational incentives, stress exposure and variability in temptation intensity. Our findings open new avenues of research into computational models of self-control that inform psychological, economic and health-policy research.

scholarly journals Detours increase local knowledge—Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0257717
Author(s):  
Christian Dirk Wiesner ◽  
Jennifer Meyer ◽  
Christoph Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Number Comparison ◽  
Control Failure ◽  
The Cost

Self-control enables people to override momentary thoughts, emotions, or impulses in order to pursue long-term goals. Good self-control is a predictor for health, success, and subjective well-being, as bad self-control is for the opposite. Therefore, the question arises why evolution has not endowed us with perfect self-control. In this article, we draw some attention to the hidden benefits of self-control failure and present a new experimental paradigm that captures both costs and benefits of self-control failure. In an experiment, participants worked on three consecutive tasks: 1) In a transcription task, we manipulated how much effortful self-control two groups of participants had to exert. 2) In a number-comparison task, participants of both groups were asked to compare numbers and ignore distracting neutral versus reward-related pictures. 3) After a pause for recreation, participants were confronted with an unannounced recognition task measuring whether they had incidentally encoded the distracting pictures during the previous number-comparison task. The results showed that participants who exerted a high amount of effortful self-control during the first task shifted their priorities and attention toward the distractors during the second self-control demanding task: The cost of self-control failure was reflected in worse performance in the number-comparison task. Moreover, the group which had exerted a high amount of self-control during the first task and showed self-control failure during the second task was better in the unannounced third task. The benefit of self-control failure during number comparison was reflected in better performance during the recognition task. However, costs and benefits were not specific for reward-related distractors but also occurred with neutral pictures. We propose that the hidden benefit of self-control failure lies in the exploration of distractors present during goal pursuit, i.e. the collection of information about the environment and the potential discovery of new sources of reward. Detours increase local knowledge.

scholarly journals Distracted or Not? An Experience Sampling Study on Adolescents’ Social Media Use and Self-Control Failure

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teun Siebers ◽  
Ine Beyens ◽  
J. Loes Pouwels ◽  
Patti M. Valkenburg
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Control Research ◽  
Control Failure ◽  
Current Experience ◽  
Group 1

One of the key challenges in adolescence is to develop the ability for self-control. The current experience sampling method (ESM) study examined whether adolescents who spend more time on social media than their peers are more inclined to fail at this ability (between-person association), whether social media use and self-control failure co-fluctuate within adolescents (within-person association), and whether this within-person association differs from person to person. With a sample of 383 adolescents (Mage = 14.1), who together completed 35,099 ESM surveys (73% compliance), we found both a positive between-person association (β = .31) and a positive within-person association (β = .12) of social media use with self-control failure. However, the within-person association differed from adolescent to adolescent: While social media use was positively associated with self-control failure among most adolescents (52%), it was not associated among a large group (47%), and negatively associated among a very small group (1%). The findings highlight the importance of a person-specific approach in social media and self-control research and open up new directions for future studies.

scholarly journals Associations between use of self-regulatory strategies and daily eating patterns: An experience sampling study in college-aged women

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Lopez ◽  
Danielle Cosme ◽  
Kaitlyn M. Werner ◽  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Wilhelm Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Eating Patterns ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Adaptive Use ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment ◽  
Food Consumed

AbstractPrevious theorizing suggests there are multiple means by which people regulate their emotions and impulses, but that these strategies vary in the degree to which they support goal attainment. Some have proposed that proactive strategies (e.g. situation selection, distraction) may be particularly effective, while interventive strategies (e.g. suppression) are less effective. Despite these diverging predictions, researchers have yet to examine spontaneous use of these strategies and their respective and combined efficacy when applied to momentary food desires experienced in daily life. In the present study, we assessed eating patterns for one week via ecological momentary assessment in college-aged women (N = 106). Results from pre-registered analyses indicated that using a variety of strategies, including preventative strategies such as situation selection and distraction, was associated with greater self-control success, as indexed by weaker desires, higher resistance, lower likelihood of enacting desires, and less food consumed. A similar pattern was observed when participants implemented additional strategies during desire episodes, which they were more likely to do when their desires conflicted with other self-regulatory goals. All associations were observed while controlling for momentary hunger levels, dieting status, age, and body mass index. These findings are consistent with a growing body of work assessing people’s spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies in everyday contexts, suggesting potential meta-motivational tendencies marked by flexible and adaptive use of self-regulatory strategies.

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