CBI – Literatuur college 4
Self-regulation and self-control
Voorbereiding
Chapter 8 – Self-regulation (O’Donohue & Fisher, 2012).
Helping and Individual to Develop Self-control (Martin & Pear, 2011).
Chapter 8 – Self-regulation
For many people the self-regulatory system is not functioning in an optimal fashion.
Moreover, most forms of clinical disturbance reflect dysfunctional self-regulation of thought
processes, emotionality, physiological responsiveness, or behavior. Two related but distinct
forms of self-regulation can be distinguished from each other;
Self-regulation type 1 – A temporally extended process of relatively effortful
mobilization of skills, resources, and strategic knowledge, that enables movement
toward or away from personal goals. This is done through targeting the modulation of
attention, action, thought, emotion, physiological arousal, or social exchange in a
relatively flexible and situationally coordinated manner under conditions of stress,
uncertainty, transition, novelty, conflict, or affective arousal.
Also known as: Controlled, conscious, anterior cingulate cortex mediated, and
explicit.
Self-regulation type 2 – A temporally limited process of relatively effortless
deployment of skills, resources, and strategic knowledge that enables movement
toward or away from personal goals. This is done through targeting the modulation of
attention, action, thought, emotion, physiological arousal, or social exchange in a
relatively inflexible and situationally primed manner under relatively predictable,
routine, nonconflicting, safe, or stable conditions.
Also known as: Automatic, implicit, nonconscious, reflexive and amygdala-mediated.
When the two types of regulation coordinate, they permit humans to achieve adaptive
flexibility and persistence. Yet the two types should not be seen as functionally independent
or antagonistic. CBT interventions mostly tend to focus upon teaching or strengthening type 1
self-regulation, although those skills may eventually become automated (and, hence, aptly
describable under the banner of type 2 self-regulation). A distinction can also be between
‘moving toward or away from personal goals or subgoals’, which refers to two types of
striving; approach and avoidance goal pursuit.
Approach goals – An approach goal is generally some state or outcome one wishes to
attain, which are largely motivated by positive incentives.
For example: Obtaining a raise in salary.
Avoid goals – An avoidance goal reflects a state or outcome one strives to stay away
from, which are stimulated by fear or anxiety over incentive loss or fear of direct
punishment.
For example: Not being fired.
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,These two types of goals should be distinguished from a special case of self-regulation,
named self-control;
Self-control involves not movement toward or away from specific goals, but rather
attempts to modify the likelihood of pursuing a goal that one has habitually sought.
This is a special case of self-regulation and it can be defined as a process of
mobilizing skills, resources, and strategies designed to alter the probability of
engaging in a response pattern characterized by conflicting temporal consequences.
The broad objective of self-control interventions is to de-automate maladaptive
response patterns.
Self-control involves either;
Short-term rewarding consequences, but delayed punishment. Such as in overeating,
excessive alcohol or drug consumption.
Short-term aversive consequences, but delayed reward. Such as in going to the dentist
or staying home and studying on a Saturday night.
Conclusion: So in essence, consciously mobilizing or non-consciously deploying regulatory
processes for behavior maintenance refers to self-regulation, while behavior change refers to
self-control.
Key functional capacities of self-regulatory systems
There are eight key functional capacities of human self-regulatory systems;
1. Context Awareness and Self-Monitoring – Both conscious and automated self-
regulation are context dependent, and context awareness likewise is an essential
feature underlying the guidance-to-goal process. This includes awareness to both
internal and external events, just as remaining attuned to contextual constraints and
transitions, and being capable of discerning the emergent rules of effective conduct.
Research often refers to this general minding process as self-monitoring.
Self-monitoring refers to the process of systematically attending to one’s
current actions, thoughts, emotions, or physiological reactions and/or to their
immediate antecedents or consequences over a sufficient period of time, to
allow for comprehensive and reliable sampling. Because the antecedents and
consequences noted in this definition can refer to internal and external events,
the broad-based idea of context awareness pertains.
Next to consciousness, attention also plays an important role, namely one’s selective
focus on or perception of salient aspects of the current experience. Two aspects of the
environment are particularly salient to the regulatory mission; the actor’s goals and
change. Specifically, when external or internal conditions transition from a state of
balance to a state of imbalance or destabilization (like going from low stress to high
stress), the adaptive burden becomes heightened and self-regulatory efforts become
salient. Obviously, individual differences in sensitivity to changes in adaptive burden
exist, affecting the process.
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, 2. Error/Discrepancy/Uncertainty Monitoring – A special form of context awareness
occurs when an individual is confronted with a mismatch between desired end states
(goals) and current states. When (perceptual) input is compared against desired goals
and is judged to be discrepant, the resulting error signal provides motivational input
for the individual to take corrective action. This complete circuit from (perceptual)
input to goal comparison to error signal generation to corrective action, is called a
negative feedback loop, which will be discussed next.
3. Negative Feedback Control – The previously noted negative feedback loop bears a
resemblance to the term negative feedback, which typically implies criticism or
disapproval. Certain types of criticism lead to virtually no change (such as ‘you’re
ugly’), while other types of criticism serve to generate corrective action (‘you made a
mistake in that equation’). This corrective action in this case would be an action that
opposes or corrects the effect of the so-called ‘disturbance’ – the mathematic mistake
in this example. By contrast, positive feedback does not refer to praise, but rather to
amplification of the error or discrepancy. amplification (so the opposite of control).
The use of negative feedback techniques to facilitate self-regulation comes into play
whenever individuals access and use knowledge of the results of their actions on the
environment, to counter disruptions or discrepancies and achieve a comfortable or
preferred state. Importantly, the steady states that individuals seek does not always
have to be psychologically or physically healthy. Self-regulatory interventions are
therefore often designed to teach clients to use their well-functioning negative
feedback skills to pursue a different preferred state or goal.
4. Self-Efficacy and Related Evaluations, Appraisals, and Beliefs – Among the key
cognitive functions of the self-regulatory system is that of self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy can be defined as a belief in one’s abilities to organize and enact
varied actions in the service of goals or objectives. People with strong self-
efficacy beliefs tend to set higher goals, react better to life’s setbacks, make
better decisions, and are more willing to put themselves in high risk–high
payoff situations. Efficacy beliefs derive from performance accomplishments,
vicarious experience, social persuasion, and physiological states.
Although self-efficacy may be the most heavily researched regulation-relevant facet of
self-knowledge, other information processing habits also potentially mediate or
moderate the connections between contextual stressors and the capacity to maintain
one’s life course. Other facets thought of to be beneficial to self-regulation, pertain to
acceptance and reappraisal. The existence of maladaptive mechanisms is however also
worth noting, which (among others) include rumination and suppression. Two of these
self-defeating regulatory strategies will be further discussed, namely self-worth
maintenance and perfectionism.
Self-worth maintenance: Research has repeatedly shown that people at times
prefer to think positively, rather than accurately, especially when accurate
information threatens their self-esteem. Efforts to defensively prove one’s
worth to oneself or to others can paradoxically undermine self-regulation by
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