Conquering the inner couch potato: precommitment is an effective strategy to enhance motivation for effortful actions

Letting effort-free gratification derail us from effort-requiring goals is one reason why we fail to realize health-relevant intentions like ‘exercise regularly’. We tested the effectiveness of the self-control strategy precommitment in such effort-related conflicts, using a novel laboratory choice paradigm, where participants could precommit to an effort-requiring large reward by pre-eliminating an effort-free small reward from their choice set. Our participants used precommitment frequently and effectively, such that they reached effort-requiring large rewards more often. Using computational modelling and Bayesian model comparisons, we assessed whether participants employed precommitment to avoid anticipated willpower failures (i.e. as a self-regulatory measure) or to maximize their motivation to choose the effort-requiring option (i.e. as a self-motivational measure). Observed choices and precommitment decisions were consistent with the motivation maximization hypothesis, but not the willpower hypothesis. Our findings show that offering precommitment is effective in helping individuals optimize their motivation and choice behaviour and thereby achieve effort-requiring goals, and strongly encourage application of precommitment schemes in exercise and rehabilitation interventions. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0128 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180128 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anthony R. Isles ◽

Catharine A. Winstanley ◽

Trevor Humby

Keyword(s):

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Neurodegenerative Disorders ◽

Human Population ◽

Clinical Implications ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Impulsive Behaviour ◽

Theoretical Perspectives

Our willingness to take risks, our ability to wait or the speed with which to make decisions are central features of our personality. However, it is now recognized that impulsive and risk-taking behaviours are not a unitary construct, and different aspects can be both psychologically and neurally dissociated. The range of neurochemicals and brain systems that govern these behaviours is extensive, and this may be a contributing factor to the phenotypic range seen in the human population. However, this variety can also be pathological as extremes in risk-taking and impulsive behaviours are characteristics of many neuropsychiatric and indeed neurodegenerative disorders. This spans obsessive–compulsive disorder, where behaviour becomes ridged and non-spontaneous, to the nonsensical risk-taking seen in gambling and drug taking. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications'.

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Computational psychiatry of impulsivity and risk: how risk and time preferences interact in health and disease

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0135 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180135 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Silvia Lopez-Guzman ◽

Anna B. Konova ◽

Paul W. Glimcher

Keyword(s):

Risk Taking ◽

Temporal Discounting ◽

Time Preferences ◽

Clinical Implications ◽

Mathematical Relationship ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Impulsive Behaviour ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Subjective Value ◽

Health And Disease

Choice impulsivity is an important subcomponent of the broader construct of impulsivity and is a key feature of many psychiatric disorders. Choice impulsivity is typically quantified as temporal discounting , a well-documented phenomenon in which a reward's subjective value diminishes as the delay to its delivery is increased. However, an individual's proclivity to—or more commonly aversion to— risk can influence nearly all of the standard experimental tools available for measuring temporal discounting. Despite this interaction, risk preference is a behaviourally and neurobiologically distinct construct that relates to the economic notion of utility or subjective value. In this opinion piece, we discuss the mathematical relationship between risk preferences and time preferences, their neural implementation, and propose ways that research in psychiatry could, and perhaps should, aim to account for this relationship experimentally to better understand choice impulsivity and its clinical implications. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Why has evolution not selected for perfect self-control?

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0139 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180139 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Benjamin Y. Hayden

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Self Control ◽

Subjective Feeling ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Obvious Reason ◽

Control Failures

Self-control refers to the ability to deliberately reject tempting options and instead select ones that produce greater long-term benefits. Although some apparent failures of self-control are, on closer inspection, reward maximizing, at least some self-control failures are clearly disadvantageous and non-strategic. The existence of poor self-control presents an important evolutionary puzzle because there is no obvious reason why good self-control should be more costly than poor self-control. After all, a rock is infinitely patient. I propose that self-control failures result from cases in which well-learned (and thus routinized) decision-making strategies yield suboptimal choices. These mappings persist in the decision-makers’ repertoire because they result from learning processes that are adaptive in the broader context, either on the timescale of learning or of evolution. Self-control, then, is a form of cognitive control and the subjective feeling of effort likely reflects the true costs of cognitive control. Poor self-control, in this view, is ultimately a result of bounded optimality. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications.

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Interactions of immediate and long-term action regulation in the course and complications of bipolar disorder

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0132 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180132 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Marijn Lijffijt ◽

Brittany O'Brien ◽

Ramiro Salas ◽

Sanjay J. Mathew ◽

Alan C. Swann

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Treatment Strategies ◽

Behavioural Disorders ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Impulsive Behaviour ◽

Behavioural Sensitization ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Clinical Consequences

Immediate and long-term mechanisms interact in the regulation of action. We will examine neurobiology and practical clinical consequences of these interactions. Long-term regulation of immediate behavioural control is based on analogous responses to highly rewarding or stressful stimuli: (i) impulsivity is a failure of the balance between activation and inhibition in the immediate regulation of action. (ii) Sensitization is a persistently exaggerated behavioural or physiological response to highly salient stimuli, such as addictive stimuli or inescapable stress. Sensitization can generalize across classes of stimuli. (iii) Impulsivity, possibly related to poor modulation of catecholaminergic and glutamatergic functions, may facilitate development of long-term sensitized responses to stressful or addictive stimuli. In turn, impulsivity is prominent in sensitized behaviour. (iv) While impulsivity and sensitization are general components of behaviour, their interactions are prominent in the course of bipolar disorder, emphasizing roles of substance-use, recurrent course and stressors. (v) Suicide is a complex and severe behaviour that exemplifies the manner in which impulsivity facilitates behavioural sensitization and is, in turn, increased by it, leading to inherently unpredictable behaviour. (vi) Interactions between impulsivity and sensitization can provide targets for complementary preventive and treatment strategies for severe immediate and long-term behavioural disorders. Progress along these lines will be facilitated by predictors of susceptibility to behavioural sensitization. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Developmental perspectives on risky and impulsive choice

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0133 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180133 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Gail M. Rosenbaum ◽

Catherine A. Hartley

Keyword(s):

Risk Taking ◽

Epidemiological Data ◽

Impulsive Choice ◽

Choice Behaviour ◽

Developmental Patterns ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Age Related ◽

Neural Processes ◽

Changes In Risk ◽

Task Parameters

Epidemiological data suggest that risk taking in the real world increases from childhood into adolescence and declines into adulthood. However, developmental patterns of behaviour in laboratory assays of risk taking and impulsive choice are inconsistent. In this article, we review a growing literature using behavioural economic approaches to understand developmental changes in risk taking and impulsivity. We present findings that have begun to elucidate both the cognitive and neural processes that contribute to risky and impulsive choice, as well as how age-related changes in these neurocognitive processes give rise to shifts in choice behaviour. We highlight how variability in task parameters can be used to identify specific aspects of decision contexts that may differentially influence risky and impulsive choice behaviour across development. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Feeding behaviour, risk-sensitivity and response control: effects of 5-HT2Creceptor manipulations

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0144 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180144 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Trevor Humby ◽

Yateen Patel ◽

Jenny Carter ◽

Laura-Jean G. Stokes ◽

Robert D. Rogers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Taking ◽

Impulse Control ◽

Delay Condition ◽

Risk Sensitivity ◽

Variable Delay ◽

Theme Issue ◽

The Past ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Developed World ◽

The Impact

People, like animals, tend to choose the variable option when given the choice between a fixed and variable delay to reward where, in the variable delay condition, some rewards are available immediately (Laura-Jeanet al. 2019Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B374, 20180141. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2018.0141)). This bias has been suggested to reflect evolutionary pressures resulting from food scarcity in the past placing a premium on obtaining food quickly that can win out against the risks of sometimes sustaining longer delays to food. The psychologies mediating this effect may become maladaptive in the developed world where food is readily available contributing, potentially, to overeating and obesity. Here, we report our development of a novel touchscreen task in mice allowing comparisons of the impact of food delay and food magnitude across species. We show that mice exhibit the typical preference, as shown by humans, for variable over fixed delays to rewards but no preference when it comes to fixed versus variable reward amounts and further show that this bias is sensitive to manipulations of the 5-HT2Creceptor, a key mediator of feeding and impulse control. We discuss the data in terms of the utility of the task to model the psychologies and underlying brain mechanisms impacting on feeding behaviours.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Relationships among impulsive, addictive and sexual tendencies and behaviours: a systematic review of experimental and prospective studies in humans

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2018.0129 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 374 (1766) ◽

pp. 20180129 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Robert F. Leeman ◽

Bonnie H. P. Rowland ◽

Nioud Mulugeta Gebru ◽

Marc N. Potenza

Keyword(s):

Sexual Behaviour ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Empirical Support ◽

International Classification Of Diseases ◽

Impulsive Behaviour ◽

Sexual Behaviours ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Wide Range ◽

Classification Of Diseases

Impulsivity's relationships to addictive and sexual behaviours raise questions regarding the extent impulsivity may constitute a vulnerability factor for subsequent addictive and sexual behaviours and/or results from each of these. Here, we systematically reviewed empirical support for impulsivity as a precipitating factor or a consequence of addictive or sexual behaviours. We restricted ourselves to recent, human studies with assessments over time, including at least one measure of impulsivity, addictive and sexual behaviours, yielding a review including 29 published reports from 28 studies. Findings point to generalized, self-reported impulsivity as a predictor of addictive and sexual behaviours at a wide range of severity, with elements of both impulsivity and compulsivity to these acts. Alcohol consumption often increases impulsive behaviour, including inclinations towards impulsive and potentially compulsive sexual acts. Research using the Sexual Delay Discounting Task has yielded findings linking impulsivity, addictive and sexual behaviour and as such is a valuable research tool that should be used more extensively. The present review identified gaps to be addressed in further research that concurrently examines facets of impulsivity, addictive and sexual behaviours, especially because criteria for compulsive sexual behaviour disorder have been included in the eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases . This article is part of the theme issue ‘Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications’.

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Adolescents’ Future Negative Time Perspective and Risk-Taking Behaviors: The Roles of Coping Styles and Self-Control

10.31234/osf.io/rgcts ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Kai Dou ◽

Ming-Chen Zhang ◽

Yue Liang

Keyword(s):

Risk Taking ◽

Time Perspective ◽

Longitudinal Design ◽

Coping Styles ◽

Future Time Perspective ◽

Self Control ◽

Total N ◽

Negative Coping ◽

Risk Taking Behaviors ◽

Negative Time

The association between future time perspective and risk-taking behaviors has received extensive empirical attention. However, the underlying mechanism that links future negative time perspective to risk-taking behaviors are complex and not well-understood. To address this gap, we adopted a longitudinal design examined the association between FNTP and risk-taking behaviors, and the roles of coping styles and self-control in this association among Chinese adolescents (total N = 581, 46.3% females). Results showed that FNTP at wave 1 predicted risk-taking behavior at wave 3 via positive and negative coping styles at wave 2. Furthermore, adolescents with low self-control and used negative coping strategies prefer to engage in risk-taking behaviors as compared to their high self-control counterparts. Taken together, these research findings underscore the importance of considering influence of the future negative time perspective on adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors, and provided important implications for developing the preventions and interventions for reducing adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors.

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