Second, although there is a short-term benefit to external control for state-oriented individuals, the results also indicate that there may be a long-term cost associated with external control and self-suppression. As the authors note, "Although state-oriented participants profited from control when trying to resist a motivationally relevant distracter, they experienced negative consequences of control in the long run . . . introducing a task in an authoritative [controlling] manner resulted in self-suppression that outlasted task completion" (pp. 466-467; emphasis added). In other words, even when the participants were allowed to stop, the state-oriented participants were unable to refocus on self-generated goals and desires. In contrast to action-oriented participants, the state-oriented participants did not behave according to their emotional preferences, in fact, they seem to lose access to their personal preferences because they suppressed these as a strategy to self-regulate.
Closing thoughts
Interestingly, Baumann and Kuhl close their paper by noting that their results support the assumption of Self-Determination Theory about external control having negative consequences in the long run. They take this further by noting that the self-suppression mechanism used by state-oriented individuals in the presence of external control actually leads to alienation from personal preferences. This alienation is a psychological cost factor associated with the short-term benefits of external-control facilitated self-control.
Alienation from one's own preferences speaks to an earlier blog topic, one that I have emphasized as being extremely important for understanding procrastination. Alienation from self in this regard may be regarded as a form of "bad faith." However, in this case it's not that we're actively trying to deceive ourselves and escape our freedom to choose. Instead, our over-reliance on external control to maintain self-control actually alienates us from our sense of self, our emotional preferences and self-generated goals.
The ultimate issue seems to be one of seeking autonomously motivated goals in our lives, even though we may need to draw on external control at times when self-regulation leaves us short. For some, those defined by high scores on state-orientation for example, this will be a long-term process of change, as they'll be working against a personality disposition that represents a liability to self-regulation. It doesn't mean that self-regulation is impossible, it's just more difficult, and may require the use of more conscious strategies to effect autonomous control and action. In the end, if we choose the short-term gain of relying solely on external control, whether this be as individuals or as parents or teachers trying to influence and motivate children, we may be only setting ourselves up for some long-term pain.
References
Baumann, N., & Kuhl, J. (2005). How to resist temptation: The effects of external control versus autonomy support on self-regulatory dynamics. Journal of Personality, 73, 443-470.
Blunt, A., & Pychyl, T. A. (2005). Project systems of procrastinators: a personal project-analytic and action control perspective. Personality and Individual Differences, 1771-1780.
Blunt, A., & Pychyl, T.A. (1998). Volitional action and inaction in the lives of undergraduate students: State orientation, boredom and procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 24,837-846.
