Lec 9 - Final Flashcards
1
Q
TB: Clean vs messy rom
- What be neatness cue ppl to?
- Amount of SC used b/w high vs low SC ppl
- What do high SC ppl do instead?
A
- This suggests the neat web sites and rooms unconsciously cue ppl to SC
- Ridder and Finkenauer
- Analyzed studies w/ Ppl high on SC
- experiments use diff paradigms to measure SC
- studies examine automatic or mainly controlled b
- Those w/ high SC show most SC in task that demands most SC
- Met analysis: high SC ppl use similar amount of SC
- Why
- The b coded automatic are related to habits
- B coded as controlled are unusual, 1-time actions
- SC is most effective when ppl establish good habits and break bad ones
- Ppl w/ more willpower are more likely to establish healthy b
- Once established, it runs smoothly
- Another finding
- SC was most helpful for school and work
- They keep the work all semester long rather than studying all night b4 exam
- Profs who write regularly rather than binge writing are more likely to get tenure
- weakest at dieting
- Those w/ SC are better at controlling weight, but there is a weaker effect
- SC help ppl adjust emotionally (happy, healthy, SE) and get along w/ others
- SC was most helpful for school and work
- Making things a habit help save willpower in the long run
2
Q
TB: Courage and religion
- What predicts survival in Navy
- What can nonreligious ppl do to increase SC?
A
- 2 main lessons: SC is important, and persistent SC to override ST impulses
- Survivors of Navy SEAL Hell week (cont run, swim, crawl w/ less than 5 hrs of sleep)
- Those who survive don’t have more muscle; they can step out of own pain and fear, and muster courage to help others
- Religion helps SC
- For non religious
- IOW: now-focused mind goes against SC; LT focus support SC
- Explain religious ppl are better at SC; nonreligious can benefit by thinking LT (Ex. Stanley believed he was doing a sacred task; I was sent to do special work and do good)
3
Q
TB: Best way and perfectionist
- Why can’t researchers find an association b/w “procrastination and perfectionists”
- The alternative explanation
*
A
Procrastination
- Most ppl do this (95%)
- It getting worse
- Workers waste 2 hrs per workday (paid $10k annually to slack off)
- Common belief: perfectionist want to do things perfectly -> worry when they start the project that it won’t meet expectations
- Rs fail to find link b/w perfectionist and perfectionism
- Rs issue – selection bias
- Procrastinator w/ high standards are more likely than a less ambitious person to seek help
- There are many ppl w/ high standards who do not procrastinate
-
Explanation: impulsiveness trait
- Procrastination affects men more as they have more impulses
- When they are anxious about a difficult job/ bored of job, they act on the urge to improve their mood and do smth else (gaming)
- They ignore LT cons
4
Q
TB: How two break it
- wellbeing results of procrastinating students
- How to combat SC failure
- Symptoms
- Smaller tasks
- Parkinson’s law
- deadlines
- Planning fallacy
- Be clean
A
- Students spend a third of their time procrastinating
- Tice study 1
- Students fill survey on work habits
- Assigned paper due late in a term (deadline 1)
- Those who missed the deadline can turn it in the following week (Deadline 2)
- If they missed it again, the can turn in the following week (deadline 3)
- Those w/ high procrastination didn’t write down deadlines 1&2
- Papers were graded by instructors were “blinded”
- Tice recorded who were the procrastinators, how late they turn in the paper, and how worse their grade were on paper and exams
- They did way worse
- Tice study 2
- Students record their health (symptoms, illnesses, how often they visit clinic/dr)
- Results: procrastinators were heathier (fewer symptom and Dr visits)
- Issue: results measured the week b4 semester ended
- Tice study 3
- Repeated study 2, students have to record their health throughout finals
- Results: procrastinators got lower grades and better health in early semester
- At the end of semester, they were way sicker
- Their worse health later cancels out their better health early in the semester
How to combat SC. failure
1 Watch for symptoms
- Frustrations bother you more than usual
- Harder to resist temptations
- When we have low energy, we prefer ST goals
- Prefer safer, easier, status quo option rather than compromising
- Strategy: state your reasons for the decision, does it make sense?
Pick your battles
- Quick and huge transformation goals backfire
-
Make small ones
- Ex instead of not drinking OH at all, have a plan to limit on the weekends only
- Parkinson’s law: work expands and fill the time available for completion
- Solution: set firm time limit for tedious tasks
- Ex. clean closet can take the whole day
- Solution: set 1 hr to clean this week; another hour next week -> done
- Make deadlines force us to make decisions ahead of time
Beware the planning fallacy
- Planning fallacy
- Ppl told to guess how long it takes them to finish a thesis, w/ best- and worst-case predictions
- Avg prediction: 34 days
- Most ppl tool 56 days (almost double the time)
- Less than half of the students finish by worst vase predicted date
- Planning fallacy affect procrastinators most; they underestimate time to complete
- Strategy: think about your past, consider how long it took you to write term papers
- -> more realistic predictions
- Strategy: ask others to review our plans b/c we tend to underestimate time that it takes to complete our own work
Prime your brain
- Spend willpower to keep tidy can increase your willpower in the LT
- When ppl see a messy desk, they exercise less SC in general compared to seeing a clean one
- Env cues unconsciously affect brain and SC
- Regular routine may perpetuates bad habits
- Pass by snack shop on the way to work -> buy snacks
- Solution: take another route
- To break a really bad habit, do it during vacation (not distraction from others)
5
Q
TB
- Delaying vice helps deny vice
- What do procrastinators do when they put off the main task?
- Role of tiny and big rewards
A
The power of +ve procrastination
- Delaying vice helps deny vice
- Ppl tempted by chocolate avoided it saying they will eat it later
- Benchley: most ppl can do any amount of work if that work isn’t the task they should be doing
- Ex. Procrastinations avoid the main task; they often do smth else rather than not doing anything
Reward often
- Need rewards to promote SC
- In games, ppl look at info on screen, balance ST and LT goals, and make the choice
- What makes games most motivating: frequent small prizes w/ occasional big ones
- This emphasizes rewards and punishments -> Platers think they haven’t succeeded yet rather than they failed
- Real life:
- Give big rewards to self when we achieve smth big
- Also, give many small rewards for little feats
- Ex. If I sprint for 1 min, I get to have a sip of Gatorade
- More willpower -> more kind/altruistic; we need to get along w/ ppl
- Willpower helps us be adaptable to challenges in life
6
Q
Paper
- SC common definition
- DM model
A
- SC common definition: preference for larger delayed. Rewards over small immediate rewards
- This SC definition is used in delay gratification and temporal discounting (Marshmallow, 10 now or 100 in 4 yr)
- In motivation perspective, the SC dilemma is that we can only choose either the small proximal reward vs larger remote reward
- IOW: dual motive conflicts
- SC requires us to consistently choose the larger distal reward; but having a small concrete reward present is challenging
7
Q
Paper: SC vs SR
- SC vs SR
- Does all SR tasks have DM?
A
- SC is a type of SR but not all SR is SC
- SR: process where ppl adopt and mange various goals and standards for their ABC, and then ensure goals/ standards are met
- There are many challenges in SR
- Ex. decide which goals to pursue
- SC is a specific SR challenge
- SR involve other challenges that do not have the dual-motive conflict in SC
- Ex. short free throw in basketball
- You need to regulate your balance and hand-eye coordination of one’s athletic goals
- This is not SC: players are not tempted to miss free throws (there is no conflict b/w distal vs proximal motivation)
- This is an SR challenge: need to match your action to behavioral standard
- Ex. short free throw in basketball
8
Q
- Paper:
- SC as EII implications
- How do impulses lead to SC failure
*
A
- This suggests that
- A. temptations activate impulses
- B. stronger impulses are associated w/ more SC failures
- C. decrements in cog and motivational resources increase the chance of SC failure
Stronger impulses are associated w/ SC failure
- The stronger temptation -> draws attention -> fail at SC
9
Q
Paper: Issues of SC = EII
- Issue of EII
*
A
- It doesn’t address the other processes ppl engage to avoid the temptation in the 1stt place and limit the effect of future temptations
- Kids know that they can increase SC by restricting the availability and opportunity to indulge in temptations (EII isn’t the only way)
- Ex. a dieter walks home in a different route; this bypasses the bakery
- She does not encounter direct temptations from sight and smell of baked goods
- No impulse is activated -> no need to inhibit impulse effortfully
10
Q
Paper: Other mech
- SC w/o conscious deliberation - aka
- How can we use +ve and -ve associations w/ temptations to increase SC?
- Use of plans
A
- In many situations, ppl hv to monitor several goals simultaneously
- If some b are routinized, it is easier for ppl to balance their attention across multiple goals
- Ex. dieter is on a date in a restaurant
- Needs to avoid indulging in foods
- Needs to pay attention to date and present himself in +ve light
- Need to avoid eye contact w/ other attractive women
- One SC task may jeopardize the other
- Ex. select low cal foods takes attention away from date
- Better to routinize some b -> low cog load
- Temptation cues tend to elicit immediate +ve eval of temptations; it can also activate -ve ones
- Those who are sufficiently motivated can automate these responses so the -ve eval are activated w/ little conscious intent
- Study
- Ppl did a rxn-time task where they were asked to respond to various temptations (ex. cake party) and goals (slim study) by moving a lever
- Results: the more successful regulators had more -ve eval of temptations based on their faster rx time to pull lever away from stimuli
- Training ppl to pull lever away from temptations led to more SC in future tasks
- This shows a casual role eval have on SC
- This suggests ppl can learn to counter temptation impulses by activating -ve associations of temptations and associate temptations w/ -ve
- This promote SC w/ little conscious effort
- Most rs assume developing automatic cog habits take repetition and consistent practice
- Rs: it may not be needed
Rs suggest that generating a plan to engage in specific b in a specific situation may be good enough to create automatic goal-striving res
11
Q
Paper: Reconstrual
- Define
- Marshmallow study
- Uni study
A
Cog reconstrual
- Ppl also use cog reconstrual to increase SC
- In psych, ppl’s judgements, decisions, and b do no always reflect objective reality but their subjective interpretations
- Ppl’s experience of object/event is altered based on their alternate construal (aka reappraisals or cog transformations)
- Reconstrual of temptations affect SC decisions; esp when ppl view events more abstractly, they choose the abstract LT goals over proximal ones
- Moore et al 1976
- Shower preschooler w/ a choice of 2 rewards (2 marshmallow vs pretzel)
- Kid say which reward they prefer (2 marsh vs 1 pretzel)
- They were promised the preferred reward if they can wait for a while w/o eating the less preferred reward that was in front of them
- Half of kids: ask to reconstrue the current reward more abstractly
- Ex. pretend they were observing a picture
- Other half: attend to the reward normally
- Results: those who attend to the reward as a picture delayed gratification longer
- Conclusion: irrespective of how the temptation was presented (pic vs real) kids who viewed the temptation more abstractly vs concretely showed more SC
- Reconstrual or reappraisal of emo evoking event removes the need for effortful inhibition strategies (ex. suppression)
- Reconstrual alter the experience of event so the emo is not evoked, and reg is not needed
- Fujita and Han 2009
- Showed that abstract construals promote SC by transforming the temptation impulse experience
- 1 Female uni students generate abstract vs concrete examples for 40 daily objects (ex. animal vs poodle for the object “dog”)
- 2 This task induce abstract vs concrete construals that influence following unrelated tasks
- 3 Rs measured the degree ppl associated apples vs candy bars +vely or -vely
- 4 These associations capture ppl’s eval of objects w/o needing conscious effort
- Ex. eating candy bars represents failure of SC among many female students as they are often concerned w/ weight loss
- If we associate candy bars w/ +vely rather than -vely (relative to apples) -> this is seen as temptation impulse
- Ex. eating candy bars represents failure of SC among many female students as they are often concerned w/ weight loss
-
Results: abstract construes alter experience of temptation impulses
- When ppl are told to view events more abstractly, they associated w/ candy less +vely
12
Q
Paper: EII is a last resort
- 4 Mech to SC other than EII
- Why does EII signal SC failure?
- Why do ppl w/ low WM can still SC?
A
- Other mech include regulate if temptation is available, asymmetric temptation, implement intention, reconstrual
- EII maybe a less effective SC strategy as it uses cog and SR resources
- So ppl use diff ways to achieve LT goals
- DM model allow ppl to be agentic in SC
- Anticipate and implement strategies to decrease SC failures
- Using these strategies can obviate (remove) EII
- This suggest that experience temptation impulse by signal failure of these strategies or failure to implement them
- These impulse experience may alert ppl to the need to use EII (last resort)
- Thus, using EII helps increase SC, overuse of EII indicates underutilization of other strategies
- When conscious and reg resources are low, those who are skilled at EII are vulnerable to SC breakdowns
- Deficiencies or fail to use a specific strategy and b compensated by using another one more
- Ex. those w/ below avg WM are vulnerable to SC failures
- We may label them bad at SC as their lower cog capacities are insufficient to use EII
- IOW, ppl who are good at SC depend on what strategy is being assessed and under what condition this strategy is used
- There are other strategies to compensate deficiency in SC
- Ex. dev automatic goal promoting responses, adopt alt cog reconstruals of temptations
- Ppl may be better at some strategies than others
- So assessing SC may need us to assess how well ppl balance and use their strengths and weaknesses to protect goals
13
Q
Lec: Self-control - the standard view (what ppl used to think)
- Sequential task paradigm
- trait self-control - finding
- behavioural measures of cognitive control
- findings and critiques
A
Self-control - the standard view (what ppl used to think)
- Self-control assessment
- Sequential task paradigm
- STP: task 1 (deplete them) -> measure SC (state SC; SC now)
- trait self-control (self-report) – measure C, grit
- behavioural measures of cognitive control – mobilize and direct attention
- stroop
- stop signal signs
- flanker
- go no go
- Sequential task paradigm
- Trait self-control
- People high in self-control control themselves more (ex. high C)
- Self-control and fatigue
- Exerting effortful control leads to feelings of fatigue/depletion
- Previous self-control hurts current self-control – note no great evidence
14
Q
Lec: How we measure self-control now
- 2 main methods
- main methods to measure SR
- main methods to measure RT
- 3 Critique
A
How we measure self-control now
- The measure of self-control dominated by retrospective self-report and cognitive reaction-time measures
- SR: Conscientiousness (Big-5), grit, self-control scale
- RT: Stroop, go/no-go, stop signal task, flanker task (conflict tasks)
- Critiques:
- These assess trait-level self-control (self-report)
- Doesn’t tell if person is SC rn
- Might suffer from retrospective biases
- When SR, it may be based on recent events that are not representative of your character
- Can be actually report about ourself, do we actually know ourself?
- Artificial lab tests that have no bearing on real world
- Is colour-naming really associated with how well I stick to my diet?
- The association b/w b test and SR is zero even both claim to measure the same thing
- These assess trait-level self-control (self-report)
15
Q
L: Rethinking: how to measure self-control
- define EXPERIENCE SAMPLING
- 4 pros
- Hoffman methods
- Results
- On temptation, SC and actions
- Depletion results
A
Rethinking: how to measure self-control
- EXPERIENCE SAMPLING (Hofmann, baumesiter, forster, vohs, 2012) – aka use app on phone to ping them and ask them rn, what are they doing
- Benefits: real-time self-control,
- personally meaningful domains (conflict w/ personal goal – ex. lose weight),
- limited retrospective bias (remember smth)
- can examine within-person variation
- Ask participants their desires in the moment by texting them 7 times a day for 7 days to ask what they are thinking about
- Are you desiring something now?
- If yes, what do you desire?
- food, nonalcoholic drinks, alcohol, coffee, tobacco, other substances, sex, media, spending, work, social, leisure, sleep, hygiene-related
- How strong is the desire?
- Does the desire conflict with personal goals? (temptation)
- Ex. you want to lose weight; you want to eat candy
- Did you try resisting the desire? (control)
- Did you enact the desire?
- Results
- Desire predicts enactment of desire (b)
- Results
- With temptation (conflict), SC is recruited, which predicts less enactment of (tempting) desire
- More temptation -> more effort to resist
- More resistance -> less likely to give in to temptation
- Resource depletion score: how much you resisted over the day
- Results
-
The more control applied earlier, the less control is effective at resisting temptation
- If you did not resist a lot during the day, you are more likely to give into temptation
19
Q
L: Rethinking: the definition of self-control
- Duckworth’s model of SC
- SAAR
- Situation selection
- Situation modification
- Duckworth and Gross other model of SC
*
A
Rethinking: the definition of self-control
Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, 2016
- Why is self-control most often equated with self-stopping and inhibition?
- There are multiple ways to control or modify behaviour so that it’s in line with goals
- Reactive (inhibitory) control just one way
- Proactive control also important
- IOW: It’s not all about inhibition
Proposed a new model of SC
- Situation -> attention -> appraisal -> response
- Situation: temptations from the env
- Attention: What you attend to
- Appraisal: how you eval things
- Response: EII, stop impulse
- Old SC model: we chance response (EII)
- New model: there are many ways for SC
- We can change situation (ex. less temptations in env), change attention (redirect it to smth else), change appraisal, and response
- Example
- Situation: Pass by poutine shop -> tempted to eat poutine
- Strategy: don’t walk near poutine shop, walk near healthy restaurants
- Attention: I see person in front ordered it
- Strategy: in poutine shop, I attend to the water rather than the poutine
- Appraisal: It looks yummy
- Strategy: I look at the poutine, and appraise it as calorie bomb (2400 cals)
- Imagine poutine filled w/ cockroaches -> don’t want to eat
- Response: ppl eat poutine
- Strategy: refuse this
- WE should use this EII as emergency response
- Situation: Pass by poutine shop -> tempted to eat poutine
Alternatives to inhibition
- Situation
- Situation selection: switch environments!
- Situation modification: modify environment
- Ex. put snacks in high shelf -> ppl don’t see them readily -> won’t be tempted
- Attention
- Attentional deployment: focus on something else; distraction
- Ex. look away; talk to ppl rather than buy poutine
- Attentional deployment: focus on something else; distraction
- Appraisal
- Reappraise: change the way you think of tempting object
- Ex. imagine marshmallows as puffy clouds that are not edible
- Reappraise: change the way you think of tempting object
- Modify situation
- Odysseus on a journey, he knows he will see sirens who will kill them
- Have all the crew plug in wax
- Odysseus wants to hear the song but doesn’t want to crash ship
- So have the crew tie him up so he won’t crash the ship
Duckworth’s other model
- Based on Gross’ ER model
- When you can change your situation, this changes your desire (ST)
- You attend to smth else, reappraise, change your response –> change your desire
- Situation can influence your attention
- Attention -> appraisal
- Appraisal -> response
- Response -> situation
