What Is Self-Control? Self-control is the war between impulsivity and doing what's right or beneficial. It's the ability to control emotions, impulses or behaviors to achieve a greater goal. A common example of this is people attempting to maintain their New Year's Resolution and lose a few pounds.
The idea of self-control as a stable trait isn't always true. A person's level of self-control tends to wax and wane over the course of a day, suggesting that self-control is less like a mental capacity such as intelligence and more a fluctuating resource along the lines of physical energy.
Research has shown that people with strong self-control have better health, relationships, finances, and careers. They are also less likely to have problems with overeating, overspending, smoking, alcohol or drug abuse, procrastination, and unethical behavior.
Another line of theory, represented by Laub (1993, 2003), states that self-control varies over time and in response to variations in social bonds and controls (see also Hay and Forrest, 2006; Na and Paternoster, 2012 ).
There are many factors that can influence your self-control. Some mental health conditions can play a role in making self-control more difficult including ADHD, substance use, sensory processing issues, social skills problems, and impulse control disorders.
Being the subject of physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse and neglect. Preexisting mental illness. Family history of mental illness. Personal or family history of substance abuse and addiction.
An example of self control is when you want the last cookie but you use your willpower to avoid eating it because you know it isn't good for you. The ability to control one's desires and impulses; willpower.
Willpower Self-control depends on a limited resource that operates like strength or energy. People consume this resource when they exert self-control. Thus, having only one goal makes self-control more successful than when people have two or more conflicting goals. As Plato's counseled: “Do one thing and do it well.”
In adults personality characteristics related to self-control include impulsivity, sensation seeking, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Impulsivity and sensation seeking are negatively correlated with self-control, whereas conscientiousness and emotional stability are positively correlated with self-control.
Children who showed early difficulty with self-control grew up to have poorer health, greater substance abuse, more financial difficulties, higher crime conviction rates, and lower parenting skill, even after controlling for the effects of IQ, social class, and sex.
Self-control develops over the years, with some of the biggest changes happening between the ages of 3 and 7. But there is a lot of individual variation too. Some kids have more trouble regulating themselves, and they suffer for it.
Lack of self-control is the inability to restrain one's emotions, desires, or impulses. Having a lack of self-control can result in undesirable negative consequences like being arrested or losing a good friend.