Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden.
Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2023 Nov;18(6):1339-1367. doi: 10.1177/17456916221146158. Epub 2023 Feb 15.
Self-control denotes the ability to override current desires to render behavior consistent with long-term goals. A key assumption is that self-control is required when short-term desires are transiently stronger (more preferred) than long-term goals and people would yield to temptation without exerting self-control. We argue that this widely shared conception of self-control raises a fundamental yet rarely discussed conceptual paradox: How is it possible that a person most strongly desires to perform a behavior (e.g., eat chocolate) and desires to recruit self-control to prevent themselves from doing it? A detailed analysis reveals that three common assumptions about self-control cannot be true simultaneously. To avoid the paradox, any coherent theory of self-control must abandon either the assumption (a) that recruitment of self-control is an intentional process, or (b) that humans are unitary agents, or (c) that self-control consists in overriding the currently strongest desire. We propose a taxonomy of different kinds of self-control processes that helps organize current theories according to which of these assumptions they abandon. We conclude by outlining unresolved questions and future research perspectives raised by different conceptions of self-control and discuss implications for the question of whether self-control can be considered rational.
自我控制是指克服当前欲望，使行为与长期目标保持一致的能力。一个关键假设是，当短期欲望暂时（更偏好）强于长期目标，且人们不进行自我控制就会屈服于诱惑时，就需要自我控制。我们认为，这种广泛存在的自我控制概念提出了一个基本但很少讨论的概念悖论：一个人最强烈地希望执行一种行为（例如，吃巧克力），并且希望招募自我控制来阻止自己这样做，这怎么可能呢？详细分析表明，关于自我控制的三个常见假设不能同时成立。为了避免悖论，任何关于自我控制的连贯理论都必须放弃以下假设之一：(a) 自我控制的招募是一个有意的过程，或 (b) 人类是统一的主体，或 (c) 自我控制包括克服当前最强的欲望。我们提出了一种不同类型的自我控制过程的分类法，根据它们放弃了上述哪些假设来帮助组织当前的理论。最后，我们概述了不同自我控制概念所引发的未解决问题和未来研究视角，并讨论了自我控制是否可以被视为理性的问题。
