Self-Control

Controlling Responses

  • %%Physical Restraint:%% you physically manipulate the environment to prevent the occurrence of some problem behavior

    • covering nails with bandaids
    • removing access to cell phone while studying
    • deleting social media from phone
  • %%Depriving and Satiating:%% deprive/satiate yourself, thereby altering the extent to which a certain event can act as a reinforcer

    • no naps during the day so you sleep longer at night
  • %%Doing Something Else:%% performing an alternate behavior

    • no use of any distraction in the bed - only used for sleeping
    • no using phone in bed - may not use it while lying down
  • %%Self-Reinforcement and Self-Punishment%%

    \n \n Risks of using Self-Control

  • if other people are aware of your plan (social consequence) you are more likely to complete your goal

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Self-Control

  • Skinner on Self-Control

    • self control is not willpower but conflicting outcomes
    • two types of responses:
    • controlling response alters frequency of controlled response
    • physical restraint manipulates environment to prevent occurrence
    • depriving and satiating: utilize motivating operations of deprivation and satiation to alter extent to which certain event can act as reinforcer
    • doing something else: prevent engaging in certain behaviors by performing alternate behavior
    • self-reinforcement and self-punishment: reinforce your own behavior. less likely to produce consequences for yourself; use social consequences to keep accountable
  • Self-Control as a Temporal Issue

    • behavior more heavily influenced by immediate consequences rather than delayed ones
    • later consequences are less certain than sooner consequences
    • delay of gratification: choosing a larger later reward over smaller sooner reward VS
    • impulsiveness: choosing smaller sooner over larger later reward
  • Mischel’s Delay of Gratification Paradigm

    • extent to which children avoided paying attention to reward had significant effect on their resistance to temptation
    • manner in which children thought about rewards made a difference
    • children who devised tactics enabling them to wait for preferred reward were, at 17, more cognitively and socially competent
  • Ainslie-Rachlin Model of Self-Control

    • preference between smaller sooner / larger later rewards can shift over time
    • get less impulsive when you get older
    • grand plans at night and give up by next day
    • value of reward increases more sharply as delay decreases / reward become imminent
    • graduating hs - reward was greater senior yr than it was freshman yr
    • some of us can delay gratification better than others
    • innate differences in impulsivity
    • individual differences in impulsivity
    • less impulsive after experience
    • availability of other reinforcement reduces impulsiveness
    • maintain responding for distant goal by setting up explicit series of subgoals
    • make a commitment (precommitment) response
    • carried out at early point in time
    • serves either to eliminate or greatly reduce the value of upcoming temptation
    • behavioral contract
  • Small-but-Cumulative Effects Model

    • each individual choice on self-control task has small but cumulative effect on our likelihood of obtaining desired long-term outcome; helps explain who self-control is difficult
    • to improve self-control:
    • make salient that individual choices are not isolated events, but rather parts of a whole
    • have a relapse prevention plan
    • establish rules that clearly distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors

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  • Is self-control a limited resource?

    • ego-depletion model says yes
    • cognitive load is a related concept

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