Everything Everywhere All At Once: Mapping Lay Beliefs about Self-Control

Lay beliefs about self-control, such as beliefs about whether self-control is a limited or unlimited resource, may affect people’s self-control exertion, yet, a systematic understanding of these beliefs is lacking. To comprehensively map these beliefs, we conducted two cross-cultural studies in the United States, the Netherlands, and China. In Study 1 (N = 150), we directly asked participants how they viewed self-control, while in Study 2 (N = 150), we asked participants to imagine themselves in everyday self-control scenarios and to describe their thoughts during those self-control conflicts. Based on these responses, we identified 14 components of self-control beliefs (Study 1), which were commonly mentioned by people in daily self-control conflicts (Study 2). These beliefs show an emphasis on difficulty, commitment, and discipline of self-control, as compared to the limited resources perspective that is more common in academic understandings of self-control. Findings provide a comprehensive overview of people's lay beliefs about self-control, and stresses the importance of understanding such beliefs.