The common-sense model of self-regulation of health and illness.

The past decade has been witness to an unprecedented growth in research on self-regulation. For example, of the 2,700-plus chapters, dissertations, and journal articles containing the keyword ‘self-regulation’ archived in PsychINFO, a well-used social science citation index, over 1,800 have been published since 1990 alone. It is not entirely clear whether this trend is due to a shift in the Zeitgeist or a change in semantics. Though we suspect that both are involved, the Zeitgeist in Western, industrialized nations is the likely driving force. The focus on the consumer, individual choice, and populist movements that emphasize individual and community empowerment create a context congenial to self-regulation models. These models represent efforts at maintaining a sense of individual autonomy in the face of technological changes and monopolistic, corporate conglomerates that are actually shrinking the individual’s options. Whereas the exact reason for the proliferation of self-regulation models is not clear, what is clear is that an increasing number of researchers and practitioners in the fields of health and social science are adopting concepts and principles from self-regulation theory to explain human behavior and promote behavior change in different contexts (see Boekaerts et al. (2000) for a discussion of applications in areas other than health).