About the Book
How do we - societies and individuals alike - (sometimes) manage to act in line with our high priority goals when faced with tempting-yet-conflicting alternatives? In other words, how do we (sometimes) resolve a conflict between a superordinate, global goal and a subordinate, local one, and do so in favor of the global goal? These types of self-control dilemmas can be found in many contexts and may be described at many levels of analysis. Examples include the
dilemmas faced by groups fostering cooperation among their members, when defection is more beneficial for each individual; dieters resisting a tempting cake, and the cognitive system trading off speed for
accuracy in conflict tasks like the Stroop. This book presents social, cognitive and neuroscientific approaches to the study of self-control, connecting recent work in cognitive and social psychology with recent advances in cognitive and social neuroscience. It consists of three sections: The Social, The Mental, and The Brain. The "Mental" section is the book's anchor, examining within-individual self-control processes at all levels: from low-level attention to motivation
and motivational systems. The "Social" section looks at group processes, broadly defined, and how groups and societies (attempt to) resolve conflicts between their global goals and the individual's
self interest. The "Brain" section explores the brain processes that underlie self control attempts and speak directly to mental-level processes. In bringing together multiple perspectives on self-control dilemmas from internationally renowned researchers within various allied disciplines, this will be the first single-reference volume to illustrate the richness, depth, and breadth of the research in the new field of self control.
Table of Contents:
Neural
1. Anterior Cingulate Cortex Contributions to Cognitive and Emotional Processing: A General Purpose Mechanism for Cognitive Control and Self-Control
Marie K. Krug and Cameron S. Carter
2. Damaged self, damaged control: A component process analysis of the effects of frontal lobe damage on human decision making
Lesley K. Fellows
3. Working Hard or Hardly Working for those Rose-colored Glasses?: Behavioral and Neural Evidence for the Automatic Nature of Unrealistically Positive Self-Perceptions
Jennifer S. Beer
4. Control in the regulation of intergroup bias
David M. Amodio and Patricia G. Devine
5. Integrating Research on Self-Control across Multiple Levels of Analysis: Insights from Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Ethan Kross, Kevin Ochsner
6. Using the Stroop Task to Study Emotion Regulation
Jason Buhle, Tor Wager, Ed Smith
7. Motivational Influences on Cognitive Control: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective
Hannah S. Locke and Todd S. Braver
8. The Common Neural Basis of Exerting Self-Control in Multiple Domains
Jessica R. Cohen & Matthew D. Lieberman
Mental
9. Working Memory Capacity: Self-control is (in) the Goal
James M. Broadway, Thomas S. Redick, Randall W. Engle
10. The Dynamic Control of Human Actions
Florian Waszak, Anne Springer, Wolfgang Prinz
11. Task switching: Mechanisms underlying rigid vs. flexible self control
Nachshon Meiran
12. Unconscious influences of attitudes and challenges to self-control
Deborah L. Hall, B. Keith Payne
13. Self-control over Automatic Associations
Karen Gonsalkorale, Jeffrey W. Sherman, and Thomas J. Allen
14. Perish the Forethought: Premeditation Engenders Misperceptions of Personal Control
Carey K. Morewedge, Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner
15. The Power of Planning: Self-Control by Effective Goal Striving
Peter M. Gollwitzer, Caterina Gawrilow, Gabriele Oettingen
16. Unpacking the Self Control Dilemma and Its Modes of Resolution
Arie W. Kruglanski & Catalina Kopetz
17. Conflict and Control at Different Levels of Self-Regulation
Abigail A. Scholer and E. Tory Higgins
18. Getting Our Act Together: Toward a General Model of Self-Control
Eran Magen & James J. Gross
19. Implicit Control of Stereotype Activation
Gordon B. Moskowitz, Peizhong Li
20. Ego Depletion and the Limited Resource Model of Self-Control
Nicole L. Mead, Jessica L. Alquist, Roy F. Baumeister
21. Walking the Line between Goals and Temptations: Asymmetric Effects of Counteractive Control
Ayelet Fishbach, Benjamin Converse
22. Seeing the Big Picture: A Construal Level Analysis of Self-Control
Kentaro Fujita, Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman
23. From Stimulus Control to Self-Control: Towards an Integrative Understanding of the Processes Underlying Willpower
Ethan Kross, Walter Mischel
Social
24. Self-Control in Groups
John M. Levine, Kira Alexander, and Thomas Hansen
25. Justice and the psychology of self-control
Tom R. Tyler
26. System Justification and the Disruption of Environmental Goal-Setting:
A Self-Regulatory Perspective
Irina Feygina, Rachel E. Goldsmith, John T. Jost
27. Teleological Behaviorism and the Problem of Self Control
Howard Rachlin
About the Author :
Ran Hassin is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Hebrew University.
Kevin Ochsner currently is Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University.
Yaacov Trope has been a Professor of Psychology at New York University.
Review :
"The readable chapters in this book offer a beautiful blend of social psychology and social neuroscience and establish Self Control as a new area of psychological science."
-- Gerald L. Clore, Commonwealth Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
"Uncovering the neural mechanisms of goal-directed behavior is a high priority in brain research that will undoubtedly require experimentation at multiple levels of analysis. To achieve this, scientists using social, developmental, cognitive, clinical and neuroscientific approaches must come together. This book is an inspiring demonstration of how this can be accomplished."
--Mark D'Esposito, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and Director, Henry H. Wheeler Jr. Brain Imaging Center, University of California, Berkeley
" In this outstanding volume, a stellar group of leading international researchers discuss the neural, mental and social processes involved in effective self control. They present cutting-edge research on this vitally important topic, covering the conscious as well as the unconscious mechanisms people employ to regulate their thoughts, feelings and actions. A better understanding of the psychology of self control is also critically important in applied fields
such as clinical, counseling, organisational, health, marketing and sports psychology that all rely on effective self control strategies to achieve their objectives. This volume provides a comprehensive
and illuminating review of the latest advances in this fascinating field, and should become essential reading for researchers, students and practitioners in psychology and related disciplines."
-- Joseph P. Forgas, Scientia Professor, The University of New South Wales
"The mechanisms of self control are being revealed by imaging studies. This volume reviews these striking new findings and examines the many fields influenced by the new mechanistic approach to the problem of volition. Everyone interested in how the brain implements volition will benefit from this wide ranging collection."
-- Michael I. Posner, Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon and Adjunct Professor, Sackler Institute, Weill Medical College
