Why self-control seems (but may not be) limited

Inzlicht, Michael; Schmeichel, Brandon J.; Macrae, C. Neil

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2013.12.009

Cited by 731 publications

(795 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Such conflict may act as a red alarm, informing the human mind that something is going wrong with its information processing and/or its environment, and that more careful, as well as task-focused, behavior is required. This fact also suggests, in line with recent proposals (e.g., Botvinick and Braver 2015;Inzlicht et al 2014), that self-control and motivation may be more strongly intertwined than it was supposed earlier. However the nature of their interaction remains to be discovered in future research.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Our examination was rooted in numerous studies which suggested that, after prolonged recruitment of control (like ignoring intrusive thoughts, temptations, and distractors), the ability to exert self-control becomes temporarily depleted (Muraven and Baumeister 2000;Muraven et al 1998; for a comprehensive review see Hagger et al 2010). Although the evidence for such self-control depletion have recently been questioned (Carter et al 2015;Carter and McCullough 2014;Xu et al 2014), other studies proposed that selfcontrol may indeed become released with elapsing time, due to shifts in motivation (Inzlicht et al 2014), or because of Fig. 2 Mean rate of target message omission, corrected for false alarms (i.e., error rate), in the conflict versus the no-conflict condition, for the low-(dashed line) versus the high-distraction (solid line) condition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, strong control makes an agent focus exclusively on selected goals and actions, while other, temporarily ignored goals may become potentially more valuable but strong control may either prevent them from being attempted (Inzlicht et al 2014) or make switching to them very difficult (Dang et al 2014). As a result, for optimal behavior, an agent should strongly control her-or himself only when it is really necessary to correctly perform a task (usually novel, demanding, and important one), while exerting little self-control otherwise (the minimum control principle; Taatgen 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semantic Conflict Mobilizes Self-Control in a Realistic Task

Smoleń

Chuderski

2017

Curr Psychol

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The study tested a hypothesis, based on the cognitive dissonance theory, that not only stimulus and response conflicts, as studied to date on the grounds of the influential conflict monitoring theory of human self-control, but also semantic incompatibility between complex cognitive representations, can mobilize such self-control.In two experiments, we applied a realistic task (simulated web feed), and manipulated the amount of semantic conflict (contradictory text messages), as well as the amount of tempting distractors (jokes and erotic pictures) that were supposed to be ignored. Experiment 1 demonstrated that semantic conflict mobilized self-control, as evidenced by participants better ignoring distraction. Experiment 2 showed that semantic conflict yielded the self-control depletion effect, analogous to the effects caused by a prolonged resistance to distraction, most probably because it mobilized self-control. The results extend the conflict monitoring theory, by implying that the detection of cognitive dissonance between incoming messages can also serve to regulate the strength of self-control.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semantic Conflict Mobilizes Self-Control in a Realistic Task

Smoleń

Chuderski

2017

Curr Psychol

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“…In any case, this hypothesis would not explain why only the MFG (and not, for instance, the IPL) is susceptible to fatigue effect. An alternative explanation would be that the decrease in LPFC represents a functional adaptation to the cost of executive control, which might be subjectively perceived as mental effort (34)(35)(36). This notion seems plausible, because left LPFC activity has been correlated with self-reported measures of cognitive costs and to cost-based decisions (37) and because the avoidance of cognitive cost was correlated across individuals with impulsivity in intertemporal choice (38).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural mechanisms underlying the impact of daylong cognitive work on economic decisions

Blain

Hollard

Pessiglione

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

117

133

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The ability to exert self-control is key to social insertion and professional success. An influential literature in psychology has developed the theory that self-control relies on a limited common resource, so that fatigue effects might carry over from one task to the next. However, the biological nature of the putative limited resource and the existence of carry-over effects have been matters of considerable controversy. Here, we targeted the activity of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) as a common substrate for cognitive control, and we prolonged the time scale of fatigue induction by an order of magnitude. Participants performed executive control tasks known to recruit the LPFC (working memory and task-switching) over more than 6 h (an approximate workday). Fatigue effects were probed regularly by measuring impulsivity in intertemporal choices, i.e., the propensity to favor immediate rewards, which has been found to increase under LPFC inhibition. Behavioral data showed that choice impulsivity increased in a group of participants who performed hard versions of executive tasks but not in control groups who performed easy versions or enjoyed some leisure time. Functional MRI data acquired at the start, middle, and end of the day confirmed that enhancement of choice impulsivity was related to a specific decrease in the activity of an LPFC region (in the left middle frontal gyrus) that was recruited by both executive and choice tasks. Our findings demonstrate a concept of focused neural fatigue that might be naturally induced in real-life situations and have important repercussions on economic decisions.

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“…Lab studies have failed to replicate commonly cited effects (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2016;Xu et al, 2014), leading to concern that self-control may not function as conceptualized or only in specific domains such as cognitive performance (Carter, Kofler, Forster, & McCullough, 2015). However, others argued that reviewing the idea of selfcontrol in terms of motivational and attentional focus may reconcile past findings (Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, 2014). Additionally, studying selfcontrol failure as a function of physiological and mental fatigue offers promising future perspectives for this line of inquiry (Evans, Boggero, & Segerstrom, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%