Richie L. Lenne and Traci Mann
Psychology Department, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Self‐regulation is the set of processes through which individuals make efforts to alter or exert control over their behaviors, cognitions, and emotions, or, more simply, the processes used for setting and pursuing goals.
Self‐regulation plays an important role in health promotion and illness prevention because many of the most common causes of death in the United States have a behavioral component that requires ongoing management. Poor health may result from failing to regulate smoking, drug and alcohol use, eating, exercise, and sexual activity, and many treatments require individuals to adhere to medical regimens or do exercises to manage pain. Other health problems may result from failing to regulate anger, anxiety, or stress.
Self‐regulation can be conceptualized as a feedback or cybernetic system. In this kind of system, there are three main processes. First, individuals have a standard or goal, imposed by themselves or by others, that they wish to obtain. Second, they monitor their current state and compare it to the standard. Third, if their current state does not match the desired standard, they make changes to their behaviors, cognitions, or emotions aimed at moving closer to the standard. A person may have a goal of weighing a certain weight, for example. They may compare their current weight with that goal weight, find that they weigh too much, and therefore change their eating or exercise behavior in an effort to get closer to the goal weight.
This conceptualization implies that self‐regulation is conscious and deliberate, but that is not always the case. Self‐regulation can also be automatic, operating through nonconscious processes, for example, when individuals engage in habitual behaviors, or when goals are primed by situational cues.
In addition, the real‐life context of self‐regulation is considerably more complicated than implied by a simple feedback system. At any given moment, individuals may have multiple competing goals that they are aiming to fulfill simultaneously. Each goal must not only be attended to but also be protected and shielded from distractions, disturbances, and temptations, many of which come from other goals. For example, the goal of avoiding sugar may conflict with the goal of being a doting parent and baking a cake for one's child's birthday.
Regardless of the overall conceptualization, most concepts that pertain to the topic can be incorporated in one of two components of the self‐regulation process: goal setting and goal striving.
Goal setting is the process of deciding what goals to pursue and by what criteria to judge successful goal attainment. These goals can be as small as deciding to take the stairs instead of the elevator or as large as living a more healthy lifestyle. Individuals adopt health goals for different reasons, and the goals themselves have different characteristics that can affect whether goal pursuit is successful. In addition, people abandon goals for different reasons.
Most people want to live a long and happy life and do not need to be convinced that it is a good idea to take care of their health. However, some form of information is usually the first component to the adoption of a health goal. Accurate health information is not always easy to find in a landscape saturated with often‐conflicting accounts and competing incentives. It can be challenging to know what to believe, which can prevent people from forming health goals. According to theories of health behavior change, once people come to believe that certain behaviors carry health consequences, they are more likely to set goals, particularly if they believe they have the ability to control these behaviors and the behaviors align with what society and significant others deems appropriate (Ajzen, 1991).
Another influence on the goal setting process is an individual's attempts to maintain a consistent self‐concept (Fishbein et al., 2001) and to move toward aspirational selves and away from feared selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Whether a person adopts a new health goal will also be determined by the fit of this goal into the person's larger system of goals (health related or otherwise). Goal systems theory makes predictions about the adoption and successful completion of a goal by accounting for how other goals compete with or support each other (Kruglanski et al., 2002). According to this perspective, goals can be interrelated such that many goals are associated with a common means (multifinal), or a single goal can be achieved through many means (equifinal). The theory postulates that the more goals are interconnected, the stronger motivational value they carry and the more likely people are to adopt and accomplish them.
Despite the desire to live a healthy life, people struggle to set goals that will last long enough to make a difference in their health and well‐being. Certain characteristics of goals have been shown to have meaningful implications for successful goal setting and pursuit. These features include motivational aspects of goals, the level of difficulty of the goal, and the type of goal.
Goals may differ based on their motivational focus. People can have goals that are approach oriented, which are focused on moving toward a positive end state, as well as goals that are avoidance oriented, which are focused on preventing a negative end state. Goal orientations are not merely linguistic differences, but they have consequences in terms of whether the goal is likely to be met and for whom. Overall, approach‐oriented goals tend to lead to more positive outcomes than avoidance‐oriented goals (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). Approach goals may be more effective because it is harder to define success criteria for avoidance goals (i.e., not getting a disease), and to maintain motivation when faced with an obstacle, it is beneficial to have a clear idea of what steps are required for success. There are also individual differences in motivational orientations, with people tending to be oriented toward either approach or avoidance goals, and these differences may have implications for goal pursuit. For example, there is some evidence that it may be beneficial to match health messages to an individual's motivational orientation (Mann, Sherman, & Updegraff, 2004).
An important predictor of successful goal setting and pursuit, according to self‐determination theory (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999), is whether a person perceives that they have autonomous control over the decision to change their behavior. In fact, social psychologists as early as Lewin (1935) have proposed that self‐imposed goals are more motivating than goals imposed by others. Evidence for the importance of self‐set goals in the health domain is mixed, however. Interventions in which healthcare providers discuss patient values and support the patient's goal choice instead of recommending a course of action support this hypothesis (Silva et al., 2011). But other research has found similar outcomes for patient and provider set goals (Alexy, 1985), as well as employee and employer set goals (Locke & Latham, 1990).
Goals imposed by others may be less motivating because this undermines the intrinsic value of the goal (Deci et al., 1999). Meta‐analytic evidence indicates that extrinsic rewards reduce intrinsic motivation (Deci et al., 1999). In situations where people lack internal motivation, however, extrinsic motivation may be an effective motivator, such as when external reinforcements are added to employee health promotion programs. Having recognized the cost savings that come from investing in the long‐term health of the workforce, many employers have adopted material incentive programs designed to encourage their employees to engage in healthy behaviors, such as exercise and smoking cessation. There is little empirical research on the effectiveness of such programs and what, if any, payment structures are the most effective.
Goals also differ in their level of difficulty. Some research suggests that successful goal pursuit requires that the goal is feasible, but other work has found that unrealistic goals may actually inspire goal pursuit (Linde, Jeffery, Finch, Ng, & Rothman, 2004). Research in vocational settings also suggests that high demands (i.e., the goal is challenging) lead to better performance than easier goals as long as self‐efficacy is sufficient (Latham & Locke, 2007). In support of this view, when the goal is highly desirable but unrealistic, there is evidence that people will take actions to better achieve the goal, instead of changing the goal itself.
A single goal, such as a weight‐loss goal, can be cast in multiple ways. A person may set a goal to develop the knowledge and cooking skills required to eat a healthy diet (i.e., a “mastery goal”), or they may aim to demonstrate their success by achieving a certain weight (i.e., “performance goal”). There is evidence that mastery goals lead to better outcomes than performance goals (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). For example, mastery goals lead to deeper processing, whereas performance goals trigger superficial processing (for a review, see Covington, 2000). Mastery goals have also been shown to bolster self‐efficacy, increase amount of time spent on task, augment the belief that effort leads to success, and help lead to persistence in the face of obstacles, whereas performance goals have been found to undermine intrinsic motivation and increase avoidance of difficult tasks. While it is reasonable to believe that this distinction applies to health behavior, it has not often been applied.
Goal abandonment is common and often happens soon after goal setting. People frequently abandon their goals when other goals compete for time and energy or when there are no facilitating goals that share a common means of pursuit. Research tends to focus on ways to bolster goal persistence, but this is not always the most advantageous response. Abandoning a goal that is not attainable is an adaptive strategy that can free up time and energy (Latham & Locke, 2007), reduce negative feelings that come from repeated failure to achieve goals, and minimize stress from setting goals without the proper resources to attain them (Schönpflug, 1986). Goal abandonment is also advantageous when goals are beyond personal control, such as the case of those who strive toward the goal of having a “perfect” thin body.
Goal striving encompasses all actions, either deliberate or automatic, to achieve goals. This involves not only carrying out actions that directly promote goal attainment but also protecting those goals from being disrupted by competing goals or temptations. Individuals use many strategies in goal striving, which can be loosely categorized into planning strategies, automatic strategies, cognitive strategies, and effortful inhibition.
Planning strategies involve making arrangements before one is in a situation in which goal‐directed behavior will be needed, so that either (a) temptation to engage in behavior counter to the goal can be avoided or (b) the individual is ready to meet the challenge when it occurs. By thinking ahead of time about potential obstacles that may arise, individuals can plan ways to overcome those obstacles. A simple example would be changing one's route to work so that they do not pass the fast‐food restaurant with a drive‐through window, which they know would dangerously tempt them from their weight‐loss goal. Choosing to keep tempting foods out of one's home or at a distance are other examples.
Mentally rehearsing or simulating a strategy ahead of time is also a form of planning. People may envision themselves engaging in each of the steps necessary to achieve their goal so that they know what to expect and are ready with the appropriate response when the time comes. This strategy has been found effective among students mentally simulating the process of studying and preparing for exams, compared with students imagining the outcome of successful studying (Pham & Taylor, 1999). Focusing on the process rather than the outcome is an important aspect of the strategy, as only a process focus will reveal potential obstacles and challenges that may be encountered.
Automatic strategies operate without an individual's conscious awareness, or with less than full awareness. Automatic strategies are advantageous in many circumstances. They can operate when individuals are not motivated to comply with their goals and when individuals do not have sufficient attentional resources to dedicate to carefully monitoring and altering their behavior. When goal striving is automated, individuals are less likely to consciously talk themselves out of engaging in the relevant goal‐directed behavior and are less susceptible to interference from competing goals.
Habits, once formed, operate automatically and can be an effective strategy for reaching a goal. Habits are formed when a behavior is paired with a particular environmental cue many times. After sufficient pairing, the behavior operates automatically whenever that environmental cue is present. An individual may put on their seat belt when they get into their car so often that this becomes a habit, and they eventually do it without giving it any conscious thought.
Behaviors that only happen infrequently are less likely to become habits, as they do not have enough opportunities to be paired with a particular contextual cue. However, they may still be made automatic with the use of implementation intentions. Implementation intentions are if‐then plans that specify a particular action to perform in a particular situation, such as “If I am in the produce section of the store, then I will buy apples.” Forming an implementation intention and repeating it several times has been shown to lead to improved regulation of many health‐related behaviors (for further reading, see Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
Another way in which goal pursuit may become automatic is if alterations are made to one's environment (planning) so that the goal‐consistent behavior is the more likely response (or the only possible response). This may be possible by changing which behavioral options are available or possible, or by changing how the options are presented. Using “nudge”‐type interventions, for example, keeps all options available but makes certain options more likely to be chosen, by, for example, making certain options more salient, closer, easier, more convenient, or cheaper. The fact that people have behaved based on responding to such changes is generally outside of their conscious awareness.
The category of cognitive strategies includes efforts to change the way one thinks about one's goals and the obstacles to those goals. There are many ways one might think about the same goal or obstacle, and these different construals affect whether an individual is likely to be successful at attaining the goal. For example, temporal construal theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003) postulates that distant‐future events are evaluated primarily in terms of their desirability, whereas near‐future events are evaluated primarily in terms of their feasibility. When people set a goal, they tend to focus on desirable outcomes in the distant future, but during goal pursuit, these outcomes lose focus, challenges become more apparent, and persistence becomes more difficult, frequently leading to failure to achieve the goal. Individual differences in the extent to which people focus on proximal or distal goals influence goal attainment, with a more distal focus leading to better outcomes.
Individuals can be induced to focus on the future by having them think about possible events that could occur, and this serves as an effective self‐regulatory strategy. It should be noted, however, that there is also evidence for the reverse position and that focusing on the means to success rather than on the ends of success leads to more successful goal pursuit and attainment, particularly if the task is difficult. Differences in these perspectives may be explained by the reward value of goal‐directed behavior. A process focus may increase the intrinsic value of a rewarding behavior (e.g., engaging in a desired sport for exercise) but may simply highlight the drudgery of a less rewarding one (e.g., resisting desired foods).
Individuals also think about temptations and obstacles differently when those challenges are abstract than when they are specific. Challenges that are more vague and abstract seem less daunting than challenges that are concrete and detailed. For example, when children were trained to think about a tempting marshmallow in an abstract way (as “fluffy clouds”) instead of as a specific yummy treat, they were able to resist eating it for longer (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). Merely taking on an overall abstract mindset can work as well. Thinking about general categories of animals instead of specific animals led individuals in one study to think more abstractly, and they were more likely to successfully resist a tempting snack (Fujita & Han, 2009).
The final category of goal striving strategies is effortfully inhibiting an impulse that would interfere with goal pursuit, by fighting off or suppressing the counterproductive thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. This subset of self‐regulation processes is sometimes specifically referred to as self‐control (although in many other cases, the terms self‐control and self‐regulation are used interchangeably), willpower, or delaying gratification. Effortfully inhibiting an impulse is, by definition, not automatic, as it requires conscious effort, and therefore it is subject to derailment or interference when these resources—whether they are cognitive or motivational—are scarce (for further reading, see Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012).
Dual‐process models suggest that impulsive behaviors may be automatically enacted when there are not sufficient cognitive resources to challenge them. For example, when cognitive resources are scarce, individuals may not notice that they are violating their standards or may not have the ability to consider another option for how to behave. Individuals with impairments to their cognitive functioning, such as impaired working memory or executive function, have less success in regulating their behaviors. In addition, other factors that temporarily occupy these cognitive resources, including divided attention, alcohol intoxication, or fatigue, also reduce self‐regulatory success.
Effortful inhibition may also be undermined by a lack of motivation. In particular, an extensive literature on the phenomenon of ego depletion shows that inhibiting one behavior makes it difficult to inhibit another behavior, due to the temporary depletion of a motivational resource. For example, in one study, after resisting eating a tempting cookie, participants performed worse on an unrelated self‐regulation task, persisting in their efforts to solve a difficult puzzle (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). Even behaviors that seem to only require a small amount of effort to regulate (such as making a choice between two pens or suppressing one's facial expression) can still make it difficult to regulate another behavior soon after. Because of the ease and frequency with which both motivational and cognitive resources can become depleted, effortful inhibition is a strategy that is prone to failure.
While there is very little evidence that individuals can be taught to increase their effortful inhibition ability, there is some evidence that the depletion effect may be prevented with interventions that provide cash incentives, induce a positive mood, or reduce fatigue. In addition, depletion may be prevented by having participants form an implementation intention beforehand, by reminding them of their core values or even by teaching them that willpower is not limited.
Relying solely on effortful inhibition is not likely to be an effective strategy for goal attainment, but making use of multiple strategies may be more successful. For example, cognitive strategies might be used in an effort to help resist temptation, or planning strategies might be used so that individuals are less likely to encounter temptation. Similarly, if automatic strategies have been used to form habits or implementation intentions, effortful inhibition may not be necessary.
Future research on self‐regulation might aim to focus on delineating the types of situations in which particular strategies may be effective, as well as the role of partners and family members in aiding an individual's self‐control. This work may ultimately lead to effective interventions to help people successfully control their health behaviors.
Richie L. Lenne is a PhD student in psychology at the University of Minnesota. He received his BA from Lewis & Clark College in 2011. He spent 3 years conducting research at the Oregon Health & Science University before starting his doctorate. His research applies social psychological theory to public health and behavior change interventions with the dual purpose of informing theory and developing effective and efficient health programs.
Traci Mann is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. She received her PhD in 1995 from Stanford University and spent ten years on the faculty at UCLA. She is interested in basic science questions about cognitive mechanisms of self‐control and in applying social psychology research to promoting healthy behavior—particularly eating—in individuals' daily lives. Her research has been funded by NIH, NASA, and the USDA.