Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Being Active And Impulsive: The Role Of Goals For Action And Inaction In Self-Control, Justin Hepler, Dolores Albarracin, Kathleen C. Mcculloch, Kenji Noguchi

Faculty Publications

Although self-control often requires behavioral inaction (i.e., not eating a piece of cake), the process of inhibiting impulsive behavior is commonly characterized as cognitively active (i.e., actively exerting self-control). Two experiments examined whether motivation for action or inaction facilitates self-control behavior in the presence of tempting stimuli. Experiment 1 used a delay discounting task to assess the ability to delay gratification with respect to money. Experiment 2 used a Go/No-Go task to assess the ability to inhibit a dominant but incorrect motor response to the words "condom" and "sex". The results demonstrate that goals for inaction promote self-control, whereas goals …