This article investigates the psychological tradeoffs of self-control using a recently developed self-report measure of self-control and several other personality measures. It is interesting as it points to the rarely discussed disadvantages of self-control in terms of reduced affect (both positive and negative) and a disconnection from felt physiological processes and bodily states. In the context of discounting of future rewards it may be the case that people are unwilling to sacrifice their rich affective lives for greater personality consistency and the associated benefits in terms of achievement and health. This may act as a barrier to change and is also relevant to discussions relating to the ethical dimension of the validity of implementing interventions aimed at behaviour change through promoting self-control.
tradeoffs of self-control
3 comments:
As with a lot of paper I read in these branches of psychology, i think the paper is fascinating but could think of a million interpretations of the results other than the ones the authors have chosen.
A couple of things
(i) A sample size of 52 is too small.
(ii) I can accept a correlation between affect and self-control. There is nothing here that would imply causality. Particularly, in relation to ethics i would be shocked if any sensible self-control intervention (e.g. the savings opt-in interventions used in economics or impulse-control training) substantially changed the affective world of the participants. At most, i would predict mild increases in domain specific life satisfaction and perhaps less worry. Though there is a subjective element in what we mean by "intervention". The type of things i have in mind such as the mild economics interventions could not possibly have big effects (unless i have totally misunderstood personality) whereas i am sure there are extreme interventions that could have big effects on personality and affect.
(iii) the self-control scale is very useful-looking and i hadnt seen this before. it would be very interesting to examine in more detail how it fits in to time preferences, risk preferences and the other scales we have been dealing with.
in summary, good measures and interesting study but in no way, shape or form should any causal statements be made from such results. They help us to dig further in to the correlations between affect, self-control, personality etc., but give no hint as to what would happen if we changed these parameters.
There is a analogue with the Libertarian Paternalism and Hyperbolic Discounting Literature in the sense that several people have argued that HD implies policy interventions whereas others argue that just because people are time inconsistent doesnt mean there not still happy. in other words leave them alone. i think this might be what you're driving at Michael though i wont put words in your mouth!
I think the main problems exist in those who are substantially undercontrolled and overcontrolled so measures which target the undercontrolled and promote behavioural change through enhancing self-control are likely to be more beneficial than detrimental in the large majority of cases.
The self-control scale would definitely be worth discussing in terms of time preferences etc. The articles which introduce the new measures review several existing self-control measures and their disadvantages also which is handy. However, through looking at the self-control scales and the Barratt impulsivity scale it seems that there is a good deal of commonality between both where ideally one should deal solely with impulses and the other with control over them. Block also introduces the useful concept and a measure of ego-resiliency which is the ability to flexibly adapt ones level of self-control to the situation. This may explain how it is possible to be high in self-control and yet have rich affective experiences.
In regard to the HD policy interventions I have read some research on willpower depletion which proposes a model that demonstrates how in a situation where a limited resource is available to an agent with low levels of willpower a taste for commitment develops as self-control is costly in terms of willpower resources. Willpower depletion has also been forwarded as an explanation for procrastination as willpower is conserved until late in the day due to fear of depletion of unknown stocks.
Encouraging people to exercise willpower or to off-load willpower demands through precommitment and binding definitely seems like a good idea considering the potential negative effects of discounting and procrastination.
Recent study on procrastination-health link if you're interested: i'll look after my health later
willpower depletion article
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