Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications.

Many of the links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due to religion's influences on self-control or self-regulation. Using Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation as a framework for organizing the empirical research, the authors review evidence relevant to 6 propositions: (a) that religion can promote self-control; (b) that religion influences how goals are selected, pursued, and organized; (c) that religion facilitates self-monitoring; (d) that religion fosters the development of self-regulatory strength; (e) that religion prescribes and fosters proficiency in a suite of self-regulatory behaviors; and (f) that some of religion's influences on health, well-being, and social behavior may result from religion's influences on self-control and self-regulation. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Construal levels and self-control.

The authors propose that self-control involves making decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals of a situation. Activation of high-level construals (which capture global, superordinate, primary features of an event) should lead to greater self-control than activation of low-level construals (which capture local, subordinate, secondary features). In 6 experiments using 3 different techniques, the authors manipulated construal levels and assessed their effects on self-control and underlying psychological processes. High-level construals led to decreased preferences for immediate over delayed outcomes, greater physical endurance, stronger intentions to exert self-control, and less positive evaluations of temptations that undermine self-control. These results support a construal-level analysis of self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated decision making: Effects of activation and self-centrality of values on choices and behavior.

Six studies examined the value-behavior relation and focused on motivational properties of values, the self, and value activation. Priming environmental values enhanced attention to and the weight of information related to those values, which resulted in environmentally friendly consumer choices. This only occurred if these values were central to the self-concept. Value-congruent choices were also found in response to countervalue behavior in an unrelated context. Donating behavior congruent with central altruistic values was found as a result of enhanced self-focus, thus demonstrating the importance of the self in the value-behavior relation. The external validity of the value-centrality measure and its distinction from attitudes were demonstrated in the prediction of voting. Values were thus found to give meaning to, energize, and regulate value-congruent behavior, but only if values were cognitively activated and central to the self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To achieve or not to achieve: A self-regulation perspective on adolescents' academic decision making.

In 2 studies, the authors investigated the utility of the self-regulation model of decision making for explaining and predicting adolescents' academic decision making. Participants were mostly 9th and 11th graders. The 1st study consisted of all boys, and a 2nd similar study consisted of boys and girls. Measures included a newly developed assessment of decision-making skill (the Decision-Making-Competency Inventory), select scales of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory-High School Version, an assessment of the importance of academic goals, and teacher ratings of achievement behavior. Adolescents' valuing of academic goals and their decision-making competency were typically the best predictors of their achievement behavior. Older adolescent boys did not affirm achievement striving compared with younger adolescent boys and older adolescent girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impulsive decision making and working memory.

Decision making that favors short-term over long-term consequences of action, defined as impulsive or temporally myopic, may be related to individual differences in the executive functions of working memory (WM). In the first 2 experiments, participants made delay discounting (DD) judgments under different WM load conditions. In a 3rd experiment, participants high or low on standardized measures of impulsiveness and dysexecutive function were asked to make DD judgments. A final experiment examined WM load effects on DD when monetary rewards were real rather than hypothetical. The results showed that higher WM load led to greater discounting of delayed monetary rewards. Further, a strong direct relation was found between measures of impulsiveness, dysexecutive function, and discounting of delayed rewards. Thus, limits on WM function, either intrinsic or extrinsic, are predictive of a more impulsive decision-making style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in choice satisfaction: A positivity effect in decision making.

The authors tested the possibility that older adults show a positivity effect in decision making, by giving younger and older adults the opportunity to choose 1 of 4 products and by examining the participants' satisfaction with their choice. The authors considered whether requiring participants to explicitly evaluate the options before making a choice has an effect on age differences in choice satisfaction. Older adults in the evaluation condition listed more positive and fewer negative attributes than did younger adults and were more satisfied with their decisions than were younger adults. There were no age differences among those who did not evaluate options. This evaluation-dependent elevation of satisfaction among older adults was still present when participants were contacted 2 weeks after the experiment. Age did not influence the accuracy with which participants predicted how their satisfaction would change over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Where there is a way, is there a will? The effect of future choices on self-control.

Choices often involve self-control conflicts such that options that are immediately appealing are less desirable in the long run. In the current research, the authors examine how viewing such a choice as one of a series of similar future choices rather than as an isolated decision decreases the preference for items requiring self-control. The authors show that (a) in a choice between a vice and a virtue, the share choosing vice increases when the decision is presented as one of a series of similar future choices versus when the same choice is viewed in isolation, and (b) the overall share choosing a vice increases when decisions are seen in connection with similar future choices. The findings contrast with the general wisdom that broader choice frames lead to the exercise of greater self-control. The authors propose that the context of similar future choices allows people to optimistically believe that they will choose a virtue in the future choice and hence provides them with a guilt-reducing justification to not exercise self-control in the present. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Action identification of drinking and self-control.

A number of investigators have proposed that self-control over addictive behaviors may be influenced by the way individuals mentally represent their actions. Previous research based on questionnaires has suggested that those who report higher-level identifications of their alcohol use behavior may exhibit more difficulty controlling their alcohol use (Wegner, Vallacher, & Dizadji, 1989). However, it is unclear whether this association is because of characteristic ways of mentally representing specific drinking events or the fact that those who have more impaired control consume more alcohol and drink across a broader array of situations. The current study sought to address this question by examining the association between impaired control over alcohol and action identification of drinking behavior in a structured laboratory drinking task. Ninety-one young adult hazardous drinkers (21–35 years) completed the Impaired Control Over Alcohol Scale (Heather, Tebbut, Mattick, & Zamir, 1993) and an alcohol consumption task. Participants then completed a Likert scale measure to assess action identification of their drinking behavior. Results showed that those who reported greater impaired control over alcohol experienced the drinking task at higher-level action identification even when accounting for alcohol consumption variables. These findings are consistent with the view that higher-level identification of alcohol use behavior may hinder self-control (Wegner et al., 1989), and that self-management approaches may be enhanced through strategies to address mental representation of action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive functions, information sampling, and decision making in narcolepsy with cataplexy.

Objective: Narcolepsy with cataplexy (NC) affects neurotransmitter systems regulating emotions and cognitive functions. This study aimed to assess executive functions, information sampling, reward processing, and decision making in NC. Method: Twenty-one NC patients and 58 healthy participants performed an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Results: NC patients scored as controls in executive function tasks assessing set shifting, reversal learning, working memory, and planning. Group differences appeared in a task measuring information sampling and reward sensitivity. NC patients gathered less information, tolerated a higher level of uncertainty, and were less influenced by reward contingencies than controls. NC patients also showed reduced learning in decision making and had significantly lower scores than controls in the fifth block of the IOWA gambling task. No correlations were found with measures of sleepiness. Conclusions: NC patients may achieve high performance in several neuropsychological domains, including executive functions. Specific differences between NC patients and controls highlight the importance of the hypocretin system in reward processing and decision making and are in line with previous neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response inhibition deficit is involved in poor decision making under risk in nonamnesic individuals with alcoholism.

Individuals with alcoholism exhibit poor decision making as reflected by their continued alcohol use despite encountering problems and by low performance in laboratory tasks of decision making. Here, the authors investigated the relative contribution of several distinct processes of executive functions in performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) in recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism. Compared to matched healthy participants, individuals with alcoholism showed below-normal scores in the last 20 trials of the IGT as well as on other tasks of executive functions, specifically those assessing the capacity to manipulate information stored in working memory, detect abstract rules, or inhibit prepotent responses. Prepotent response inhibition best predicted performance in the late trials of the IGT, that is, when participants have likely acquired knowledge about the reward/punishment contingencies of the task. These results underline the important role that response inhibition plays in decision making, especially in risky situations, when knowledge of the probability of a given outcome becomes available (i.e. decisions under risk). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-regulation and selective exposure: The impact of depleted self-regulation resources on confirmatory information processing.

In the present research, the authors investigated the impact of self-regulation resources on confirmatory information processing, that is, the tendency of individuals to systematically prefer standpoint-consistent information to standpoint-inconsistent information in information evaluation and search. In 4 studies with political and economic decision-making scenarios, it was consistently found that individuals with depleted self-regulation resources exhibited a stronger tendency for confirmatory information processing than did individuals with nondepleted self-regulation resources. Alternative explanations based on processes of ego threat, cognitive load, and mood were ruled out. Mediational analyses suggested that individuals with depleted self-regulation resources experienced increased levels of commitment to their own standpoint, which resulted in increased confirmatory information processing. In sum, the impact of ego depletion on confirmatory information search seems to be more motivational than cognitive in nature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dopamine modulates effort-based decision making in rats.

Previous research has implicated dopamine as a modulating factor in choice behavior based on effort. The purpose of the present study was to determine the individual contribution of different dopamine receptors to effort-based decision making in rats. Rats were trained in a T-maze to choose a large-reward arm that contained 8 pellets of food over a small-reward arm that contained 2 pellets of food. The rats then were trained to climb progressively higher barriers to obtain the food from the large-reward arm. Using a discounting procedure on each test day, it was found that rats were more likely to choose the small-reward arm after treatment with the D1 antagonist, SCH-23390, or the D2 antagonist, haloperidol. The dopamine agonist, D-amphetamine, biased the rats toward choosing the large-reward arm and blunted the effects of SCH-23390 or haloperidol. Treatment with the D3 receptor antagonist, U99194, or the D3 receptor agonist, 7-OH-DPAT, did not alter choice behavior. These data indicate that D1 and D2 receptors are required for decisions based on effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-affirmation and self-control: Affirming core values counteracts ego depletion.

Research has established that acts of self-control deplete a resource required for subsequent self-control tasks. The present investigation revealed that a psychological intervention—self-affirmation—facilitates self-control when the resource has been depleted. Experiments 1 and 2 found beneficial effects of self-affirmation on self-control in a depleted state. Experiments 3 and 4 suggested that self-affirmation improves self-control by promoting higher levels (vs. lower levels) of mental construal. Self-affirmation therefore holds promise as a mental strategy that reduces the likelihood of self-control failure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of decision making and group norms.

Two studies investigated the impact of group norms for maintaining consensus versus norms for critical thought on group decisions in a modification of the biased sampling paradigm (G. Stasser & W. Titus, 1985). Both studies showed that critical norms improved the quality of decisions, whereas consensus norms did not. This effect appeared to be mediated by the perceived value of shared and unshared information: Consensus norm groups valued shared information more highly than critical groups did, and valence was a good predictor of decision outcome. In addition, the 2nd study showed that the group norm manipulation has no impact on individual decisions, consistent with the assumption that this is a group effect. Results suggest that the content of group norms is an important factor influencing the quality of group decision-making processes and that the content of group norms may be related to the group's proneness for groupthink. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis.

According to the strength model, self-control is a finite resource that determines capacity for effortful control over dominant responses and, once expended, leads to impaired self-control task performance, known as ego depletion. A meta-analysis of 83 studies tested the effect of ego depletion on task performance and related outcomes, alternative explanations and moderators of the effect, and additional strength model hypotheses. Results revealed a significant effect of ego depletion on self-control task performance. Significant effect sizes were found for ego depletion on effort, perceived difficulty, negative affect, subjective fatigue, and blood glucose levels. Small, nonsignificant effects were found for positive affect and self-efficacy. Moderator analyses indicated minimal variation in the effect across sphere of depleting and dependent task, frequently used depleting and dependent tasks, presentation of tasks as single or separate experiments, type of dependent measure and control condition task, and source laboratory. The effect size was moderated by depleting task duration, task presentation by the same or different experimenters, intertask interim period, dependent task complexity, and use of dependent tasks in the choice and volition and cognitive spheres. Motivational incentives, training on self-control tasks, and glucose supplementation promoted better self-control in ego-depleted samples. Expecting further acts of self-control exacerbated the effect. Findings provide preliminary support for the ego-depletion effect and strength model hypotheses. Support for motivation and fatigue as alternative explanations for ego depletion indicate a need to integrate the strength model with other theories. Findings provide impetus for future investigation testing additional hypotheses and mechanisms of the ego-depletion effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age, executive function and social decision making: A dorsolateral prefrontal theory of cognitive aging.

Current neuropsychological models propose that some age-related cognitive changes are due to frontal-lobe deterioration. However, these models have not considered the possible subdivision of the frontal lobes into the dorsolateral and ventromedial regions. This study assessed the age effects on 3 tasks of executive function and working memory, tasks dependent on dorsolateral prefrontal dysfunction; and 3 tasks of emotion and social decision making, tasks dependent on ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction. Age-related differences in performance were found on all tasks dependent on dorsolateral prefrontal dysfunction. In contrast, age-related differences were not found on the majority of the tasks dependent on ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction. The results support a specific dorsolateral prefrontal theory of cognitive changes with age, rather than a global decline in frontal-lobe function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample.

Previous research reported conflicting results concerning the influence of depression on cognitive task performance. Whereas some studies reported that depression enhances performance, other studies reported negative or null effects. These discrepant findings appear to result from task variation, as well as the severity and treatment status of participant depression. To better understand these moderating factors, we study the performance of individuals—in a complex sequential decision task similar to the secretary problem—who are nondepressed, depressed, and recovering from a major depressive episode. We find that depressed individuals perform better than do nondepressed individuals. Formal modeling of participants' decision strategies suggested that acutely depressed participants had higher thresholds for accepting options and made better choices than either healthy participants or those recovering from depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impacts on decision making of executives: Probabilities versus outcomes.

The determinants of decision making of executives are of special interest for companies. For a long time choices have been investigated based on theories that assume an equal impact of expected outcomes and expected probabilities (Von Neumann and Morgenstern 1953, Savage 1954, Kahneman and Tversky 1979). The influence of probabilities in decision processes is, however, questioned by a growing body of research (Rottenstreich and Kivetz 2006, Shapira 1995, March and Shapira 1987, 1992). To monitor the information acquisition process of board members and high-ranking executives in the German insurance industry we conducted 51 personal interviews, which included computer-aided simulations. These simulations clearly and objectively support former statements of executives (Shapira 1995) that they focus more on the amount of decision outcomes than on the corresponding probabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of depression on social economic decision making.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 119(3) of Journal of Abnormal Psychology (see record 2010-15289-020). In the article, the last revision received date printed on the final page of the article was incorrect due to an error in the production process. The correct publication dates are as follows: Received April 14, 2009; Revision received November 6, 2009; Accepted November 9, 2009.] Although the role of emotion in social economic decision making has been increasingly recognized, the impact of mood disorders, such as depression, on such decisions has been surprisingly neglected. To address this gap, 15 depressed and 23 nondepressed individuals completed a well-known economic task, in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Although depressed individuals reported a more negative emotional reaction to unfair offers, they accepted significantly more of these offers than did controls. A positive relationship was observed in the depressed group, but not in controls, between acceptance rates of unfair offers and resting cardiac vagal control, a physiological index of emotion regulation capacity. The discrepancy between depressed individuals' increased emotional reactions to unfair offers and their decisions to accept more of these offers contrasts with recent findings that negative mood in nondepressed individuals can lead to lower acceptance rates. This suggests distinct biasing processes in depression, which may be related to higher reliance on regulating negative emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ignorance- versus evidence-based decision making: A decision time analysis of the recognition heuristic.

According to part of the adaptive toolbox notion of decision making known as the recognition heuristic (RH), the decision process in comparative judgments—and its duration—is determined by whether recognition discriminates between objects. By contrast, some recently proposed alternative models predict that choices largely depend on the amount of evidence speaking for each of the objects and that decision times thus depend on the evidential difference between objects, or the degree of conflict between options. This article presents 3 experiments that tested predictions derived from the RH against those from alternative models. All experiments used naturally recognized objects without teaching participants any information and thus provided optimal conditions for application of the RH. However, results supported the alternative, evidence-based models and often conflicted with the RH. Recognition was not the key determinant of decision times, whereas differences between objects with respect to (both positive and negative) evidence predicted effects well. In sum, alternative models that allow for the integration of different pieces of information may well provide a better account of comparative judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)