Self-control is one of the most important attributes that we can develop. Impulsivity is one of our worse liabilities. A study soon to be published in the Journal of Research in Personality explores the interaction of impulsivity and self-control in the prediction of some common behaviors - eating potato chips and drinking alcohol.
Impulses arise in our lives when a motivation meets an activating stimulus. Nothing tempts everybody, as our latent motivations vary. For example, I don't like candy very much, so if you put a bowl of candy in front of me, this wouldn't serve as an activating stimulus for my latent motivation for candy (I don't have one). Potato chips, that's another story; that takes self-control. In fact, that's the story of the research conducted by Malte Friese (University of Basel, Switzerland) and Wilheml Hofmann (University of Würzburg, Germany). "Control me or I will control you" is the first part of the title of their new paper (full reference below).
As Friese and Hofmann explain in their paper, quoting earlier research by Roy Baumeister and colleagues, "one central tenet on self-control is that impulses are more influential in guiding behavior for individuals with weak self-control abilities as compared to those with stronger self-control abilities" (pp. 23-24 of the unpublished manuscript). Their research tested this thinking directly by measuring impulsive precursors of behavior through implicit associations.
Implicit association techniques are assumed to tap the brain's associative network of the impulsive system, capturing automatic affective (emotional) reactions towards presented stimuli (e.g. potato chips). This technique is based on average response latencies in response to the stimulus paired with pleasant or unpleasant cues. The faster the average response latencies are in a block in which pleasant cues are paired with the chips stimuli on one response key, the more positive the automatic affective reaction, and the more powerful the stimulus is as a latent motivation.
Overall, they hypothesized "automatic affective reactions to predict self-regulatory behavior better for participants low as compared to high in traits self-control" (p. 9).
This is an important contribution to the self-regulation literature, as it includes individual differences in automatic affective reactions to measure impulsive precursors of behavior. They tested this hypothesis in a couple of studies using potato chips and self-reported alcohol consumption (separate studies, unfortunately ☺).
Their Study
I will focus on their first study with the potato chips. It has a clever design under the cover story of personality and taste testing. Briefly, after they measured their participants' automatic affective reactions to the chips (representing the potential impulsive precursor for consumption), as well as trait self-control, they had participants sample and rate a serving of potato chips (e.g., size, color, packaging). Importantly, the participants were told that they were free to eat as much or as little as they wanted. Potato chip consumption, measured by the difference in the weight of chips before and after the taste test, was the outcome variable of interest.
What would you predict here? As I read the article, I expected that those participants who favored chips (as reflected in their positive automatic affective reactions to chips) and who were low in self-control would eat the most chips. Self-control itself isn't the issue alone. You have to want chips too. Statistically in their analysis, this is known as a moderating effect.
Their results were as expected; "automatic affective reactions were related to behavior more strongly for individuals low than high in trait self-control. Individuals high in trait self-control prevented their impulses from influencing behavior" (p. 24). They add, "Further bolstering confidence in the moderating role of trait self-control for the impulse-behavior consistency, the effects persisted when controlling for the related construct trait impulsivity" (p. 25).
Implications for understanding procrastination
Self-control is enormously important in terms of self-regulation. Self-control is the ability to override or alter one's habitual response, as well as the ability to interupt habitual behavior or a reaction to an impulse. Self-control is one of our psychological resources that allows us to refrain from doing things we don't deliberately, consciously choose to do.
It takes self-control to stay on task or even to get on task; not to procrastinate. To bolster self-regulation (particularly if self-control is low), it's important to ensure that there are not potent distractors around you. What these might be varies for each person.
As Friese and Hofmann write, "The crucial point is that nothing tempts everybody . . . even a person with low trait-control is unlikely to dig into the potato chip bag if she or he has no impulse to do so" (p. 25).
What are the latent motivations that become activated in your life when your self-regulation typically breaks down with procrastination? Television? Facebook? Email? Twitter?
Just as a diet is particularly difficult to maintain if you keep a bowl of chips or nuts or candy nearby (whatever your favorite might be); trying to stay on task when surrounded by potent distractors may undermine your efforts, particularly for those of us who are low in self-control.
As the t-shirt slogan in the image above jokes in relation to the very successful advertising campaign by Lay's potato chips, "I can eat just one Lay's potato chip." Based on this recent study by Friese and Hofmann, we know that this could be for a number of reasons, including: the individual has very high self control, or the individual has low self-control but doesn't like chips (at least not Lay's).
The questions now are:
When you're trying to stay on task writing at your computer, can you answer just one email?
When you turn on the TV instead of working on an intended task, can you watch just one show?
Do you have high trait self-control? If not, are you being strategic in terms of keeping potent stimuli away from you? If you want to procrastinate less, you should.
Reference
Friese, M., & Hofmann, W. (2009). Control me or I will control you: Impulses, trait self-control, and the guidance of behavior. Journal of Research in Personality. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.07.004
