Questions tagged [self-control]

For questions about inhibition and self-control phenomena, and the processes underlying them. If your question relates to executive/cognitive control more generally, please use the executive-function tag.

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Effect of deniable encryption on willigness to give up secrets under torture

Suppose a person is tortured and can choose to give up secrets or not. What effect would a situation have in which the person cannot prove that they gave up all their secrets? Would a person give up ...
Cookie04's user avatar
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What are the true signs of haters?

What are the real signs of haters? The reason I asked this question is that I encountered people who treated me badly with criticism now and then. I suspected that they hated me, but I cannot find any ...
Aleksey Vlad's user avatar
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Looking for a study featuring a self-reflection growth/distribution curve

What I mean is a graph that would either feature: a histogram of self-reflection distribution in the general population a curve reflecting the growth in self-reflection resulting from a therapy or a ...
Probably's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
84 views

What degree of control do we have on eye movements?

When something "new" and "interesting" enters our visual field it can usually happen that our eyes move toward the new target. How "intentional" and "controllable&...
Marco Disce's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
425 views

What's the behaviour of downplaying the importance of something you wanted but didn't get called?

I've seen this phenomenon in various pieces of media, but recently observed it in real life and I'm wondering what it's called. Basically, when you want something but don't get it, you downplay the ...
ThePiachu's user avatar
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What are some methods to manage a constant & persistent temptation or urge towards a bad habit like smoking, eating junk food? [closed]

This questions is around my observation of my own behavioral pattern. I am quite good at avoiding junk foods on some days and on others, I am miserably fail. I have some mild clinical depression and ...
old-monk's user avatar
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How does self-observation influence performance?

Assuming that the performance in performing a motor or mental task can be quantitatively measured (e.g. by measuring its duration, efficiency, and quality of the outcome) I wonder if there have been ...
Hans-Peter Stricker's user avatar
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120 views

"Wanting to do" without being "able to do"?

For those with disordered avoidance, a common theme is the inability to do something which is beneficial and, perhaps more importantly, even pleasurable. For those that study motivation, intrinsic ...
bmf's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Taking Control of Your Dream [duplicate]

I experienced a weird situation a while back wherein I was dreaming hut was pretty sure I was in a dream and could control it to my wishes. I even had a break in my sleep and immediately went back to ...
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1 answer
514 views

Phrase used by jordan peterson about "revealing"

In his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Peterson, 2018) has following quote: If you will not reveal yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself to yourself. That does not only mean ...
gdan's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
357 views

What are effective methods to overcome the initial psychological resistance towards an unpleasant task?

Background Some self-help books note the difficulty of starting a boring or cognitively-difficult task (relative to maintaining the 'momentum' once the task has been started). Sometimes they describe ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
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2 answers
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Getting upset from the creation of your own imagination [closed]

Lets say I got angry at someone who did/said something wrong. Even after this angry interaction with this person is finished, I noticed I continue to express my negative reaction in my head creating ...
human's user avatar
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3 answers
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What is the term for doing things or behaviors that contrast to what you really feel?

For instance a person who is racist wanting to hire black people because they want to project an image that they aren't racist. Or if they doesn't like obese people but still interacts with them to ...
Otis Patrick Jones's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
320 views

Do most people want to murder?

It seems like the most popular theory among philosophers and neuroscientists who believe in free will is something called free won’t. This basically means that we cannot will what we want to will, but ...
Cannabijoy's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
483 views

Beyond CBT and MBI, what are effective behavioral interventions for modern lifestyle addictions during their engagement?

Some modern activities exploit the primitive mammalian reward areas in the brain. They include immediate access to social media, video games, music, sugar, pornographic material, gambling etc. Worse, ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
58 views

Most successful techniques to cope with emotional aversiveness when faced with tasks outside comfort zone?

According to state-of-the-art Psychology research, what are the most successful techniques to cope with / overcome the emotional aversiveness experienced when one is faced with tasks outside one's ...
xwb's user avatar
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2 answers
159 views

Can the mind be trained to equanimously observe compulsive urges/cravings (without giving in / acting out)?

Are there any practices or habits that one can employ, either frequently or on a daily basis, to train one's mind to equanimously observe (be aware of) compulsive urges or cravings, without giving in ...
xwb's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
461 views

Best meditation techniques to overcome Behavioral Addictions?

Meditation seems to be one of the top techniques recommended nowadays for self-development (e.g. McGonigal, K. 2011). For people who want to overcome behavioural addictions (i.e. any "addiction that ...
xwb's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
537 views

Cognitive control tasks

What are the tasks that can be employed to measure cognitive control of an individual (proactive and reactive control). I have read about AX-CPT task [1]. In this task, they use letters. But I am ...
Christina's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
213 views

Long term effects of a high self monitor who voluntarily chooses a contradictory self-presentation

Are there any cases or studies of a high self monitor who intuitively chooses to act "by impulse" in order to reform said impulse? In other words when the HSM ...
makerofthings7's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
4k views

Is there any direct or indirect empirical support for the effectiveness of Mel Robbins' five second rule?

Mel Robbin's five second rule Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker who recently published a book (summary, TEDx talk, description) dealing with a simple intervention for individuals who would like ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
624 views

Does consumption of amino acid supplements improve human executive function and self-regulation in ADHD cases?

Based on my understanding, executive function primarily takes place in the frontal lobes. Inzlicht and Gutsell found that exhaustion in mental tasks shows itself in decreased activity in the anterior ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
71 views

How is compassion "derailed" into self-pity [closed]

Following up on my previous question on the possible benefit of self-pity, I would like to understand the process which is responsible to create self-pity. As @AliceD pointed out self-pity could very ...
rul30's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
155 views

Could the knowledge of the construct of self-efficacy affect the student's aptitude to a certain task?

I am a tutor for children with learning disabilities and i have read that they have lower levels of perceived self-efficacy than students without this learning disabilities. I decided to deepen the ...
Fil's user avatar
  • 1,524
2 votes
0 answers
118 views

Extinction Burst in Humans

I've recently been exposed to the term extinction burst and was wondering how it applies to adult humans and habit modification and behavior management. All the research I've found focuses on ...
Reed Rawlings's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
101 views

Paper (s) on enhancing self-control

I am interested in learning more about self-control and how and if people have increased or enchanted it. I looked on Google scholar, but I don't think I am using the correct key words. Do you know of ...
user18101's user avatar
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1 vote
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147 views

Should an individual deliberately focus/experience/feel or ignore/detach/repress negative emotions in order to isolate them from self-worth?

My question is a follow-up to this great answer to a question about the neurological mechanism of self-control. It explains that people who exhibit self-control are able to repress/isolate the ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

How do certain individuals, like Quang Duc, develop the ability to remain calm when enduring significant nociceptive pain?

A famous picture depicts Quang Duc self-immolating himself in protest of the Vietnam War. David Halberstram: "As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound [...]. His face seemed to ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
986 views

Does the brain have a 'debugging mode'?

In computer programming we have a debugger that we can use to execute a program step by step. In that mode, the program can be suspended and we can analyze the state of the hardware, modify the state ...
erdal.karaca's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
193 views

Does limiting one's trivial decisions free more energy for bigger decisions?

I've read a number of times that "successful" people limit the number of trivial decisions they make on a day-to-day basis in order to have more energy for bigger decisions. A common example cited (e....
Matt Lyons-Wood's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Do introverts engage in too much self-control or do they lack impulsivity?

Regardless of whether people are extraverts or introverts, if they are asked to act in an extraverted way, this improves their mood (for example Zelenski and others 2012). My question is concerns the ...
user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
426 views

What are other methods to induce ego depletion besides using emotional videos and thought suppression?

Muraven and Baumeister (2000) proposed that self-control is a limited resource akin to strength or a muscle, to deplete this limited resource leads to subsequent self-regulatory failure. Ego depletion,...
Sophy's user avatar
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