Alternative Frameworks for the Analysis of Self Control

Various conceptualizations of self control may be placed in one of three (not necessarily mutually exclusive) categories: (1) intrapsychic, (2) evaluative, and (3) adaptive. Discussions within an intrapsychic framework focus on the tension that may arise within the individual confronted with a situation requiring 'self control.' This tension might be analyzed psychodynamically or in terms of individuals' reports of internal struggle. To date, such an approach has suffered from a lack of quantification and the difficulty of obtaining objective confirmation of the internal conflict. The second category, the evaluative, views self control as a reflection of the inherent worth of the individual. Decisions may be rated on scales that range from child-like to adult-like, less to more intelligent, morally indefensible to proper, irrational to rational, or, simply, from bad to good. Such an approach easily permits the determination of blame or praise, but it too lacks objectivity. Within the third, adaptive, category, the choice between short-term, smaller rewards or pleasures and delayed, larger rewards is viewed less judgmentally. At times, an individual may choose the alternative that produces the larger reward; at other times, the same individual may choose the more immediate reward. Depending upon the context, either choice may be the more adaptive. For example, one might not advise a terminally ill individual to buy 30-year bonds that would be a good investment for a healthy person. Regardless of the framework, however, the evidence for self control must be behavioral. In the treatment to be presented here, the essential aspect is the choice between more immediate outcomes of lesser magnitude and more delayed outcomes of greater magnitude. Although we shall focus on choices between rewards, a similar analysis exists for choices between negative and mixed outcomes. Enduring a more immediate, less aversive event in order to avoid a more delayed, more aversive event is analogous to deferring a more immediate, smaller reward in order to obtain a more delayed, larger reward. Likewise, foregoing an immediate reward that also has delayed aversive consequences is assumed to represent self-control, and to some may even represent the paradigmatic case. For the present, we shall assume that all three cases involve the same essential conflict between immediate and delayed consequences, and that the same basic theory, once formulated, will apply to all three. Ultimately, of course, it is an empirical question whether a theory based on choices between rewards will