It has been argued that the explanation of self-control requires positing special motivational powers. Some think that we need will-power as an irreducible mental faculty; others that we need to think of the active self as a dedicated and depletable pool of psychic energy or – in today more respectable terminology – mental resources; finally, there is the idea that self-control requires postulating a deep division between reason and passion – a deliberative and an emotional (...) motivational system. This essay argues that no such special motivational powers are necessary. Yet, at the same time, self-control does powerfully illustrate the importance of a feature of the mind. What it illustrates, I argue, is the importance of the mental activity of attention in the control of all action. It is by appeal to this mental activity that we can dispense with special motivational powers. If we think of Humeanism as the view that there is fundamentally only one kind of motivational system and that all action is based in that system, then this essay contributes to a defense of Humeanism. On the other hand, the essay also shows that any model of agency in terms of only beliefs and desires, motivational and representational states, or preferences and credences is incomplete. A different conception of Humeanism as the view that every mental state is either motivational, representational, or a combination of them, is false. (shrink)

The brain's reliance on glucose as a primary fuel source is well established, but psychological models of cognitive processing that take energy supply into account remain uncommon. One exception is research on self-control depletion, where debate continues over a limited-resource model of self-control depletion. This model argues that transient reduction in self-control after exertion of prior self-control is caused by the depletion of brain glucose, and that self-control processes are special, perhaps unique, in this regard. (...) This model has been argued to be physiologically implausible in several recent reviews. This paper attempts to correct some inaccuracies that have occurred during debate over the physiological plausibility of this model. We contend that not only is such limitation of cognition by constraints on glucose supply plausible, it is well established in the neuroscience literature across several cognitive domains. Conversely, we argue that there is no evidence that self-control is special in regard to its metabolic cost. Mental processes require physical energy, and the body is limited in its ability to supply the brain with sufficient energy to fuel mental processes. This article reviews current findings in brain metabolism and seeks to resolve the current conflict in the field regarding the physiological plausibility of the self-control glucose-depletion hypothesis. (shrink)

Contents: PART I BASIC ASPECTS AND VARIETIES OF CONTROL: - Emotion, Cognition, and Control: Limits of Intentionality - Self-Efficacy: The Foundation of Agency - The Orchestration of Selection, Optimization and Compensation: An Action-Theoretical Conceptualization of a Theory of Developmental Regulation - Freedom of the Will -- the Basis of Control. PART II CONSCIOUS, AUTOMATIC, AND CONTROLLED PROCESSES: - Automatic and Controlled Uses of Memory in Social Judgments - Are Controlled Processes Conscious? - Intuition and Levels of Control: The Non-Rational (...) Way of Reacting, Adapting, and Creating. PART III PERCEPTION, KNOWLEDGE, MEMORY, AND LEARNING: - The Issue of Control in Sensory and Perceptual Processes: Attention Selects and Modulates the Visual Input - The Control of Knowledge Activation in Discourse Comprehension - Working Memory and Attentional Control - Problem-Oriented Learning: Facilitating the Use of Domain-Specific and Control Strategies through Modeling by an Expert - The Role of Cognitive Structure in the Development of Behavioral Control: A Dynamic Skills Approach. (shrink)

Mindfulness meditation describes a set of different mental techniques to train attention and awareness. Trait mindfulness and extended mindfulness interventions can benefit self-control. The present study investigated the short-term consequences of mindfulness meditation under conditions of limited self-control resources. Specifically, we hypothesized that a brief period of mindfulness meditation would counteract the deleterious effect that the exertion of self-control has on subsequent self-control performance. Participants who had been depleted of self-control resources by an (...) emotion suppression task showed decrements in self-control performance as compared to participants who had not suppressed emotions. However, participants who had meditated after emotion suppression performed equally well on the subsequent self-control task as participants who had not exerted self-control previously. This finding suggests that a brief period of mindfulness meditation may serve as a quick and efficient strategy to foster self-control under conditions of low resources. (shrink)

In mental action there is no motor output to be controlled and no sensory input vector that could be manipulated by bodily movement. It is therefore unclear whether this specific target phenomenon can be accommodated under the predictive processing framework at all, or if the concept of “active inference” can be adapted to this highly relevant explanatory domain. This contribution puts the phenomenon of mental action into explicit focus by introducing a set of novel conceptual instruments and developing (...) a first positive model, concentrating on epistemic mental actions and epistemic self-control. Action initiation is a functionally adequate form of self-deception; mental actions are a specific form of predictive control of effective connectivity, accompanied and possibly even functionally mediated by a conscious “epistemic agent model”. The overall process is aimed at increasing the epistemic value of pre-existing states in the conscious self-model, without causally looping through sensory sheets or using the non-neural body as an instrument for active inference. (shrink)

This chapter challenges the assumption of attention functioning as a means of preventing consciousness from getting overloaded, and also challenges the assumption of any relationships between management of scarce resources and the original biological function of attention. It emphasizes that attention is directly derived from mechanisms governing the control of basic movements. The author establishes the theoretical stage through discussions on the implications of the brain’s preference to stimulus events and action plans in a feature-based manner and (...) processing information through different mechanisms. The chapter also discusses many empirical findings supporting the conception of action planning and action control having the potential to determine perception and attention. (shrink)

Despite its association with individual health, few studies have focused on the relationship between adolescent self-control and individual physical and mental health in adulthood. We aimed, therefore, to explore the impact of adolescent self-control on individual physical and mental health in adulthood. We employed the dataset of China Labor-Force Dynamics Surveys [CLDS]. 13,389 respondents with an average age of 45.621 years are consisted in this study. The respondents were asked to report their adolescent self-control through (...) recall. The ordered probit and the ordinary least squares models were employed to estimate the effects of adolescent self-control on physical and mental health in adulthood, respectively. We adopted the propensity score matching method to address the self-selection bias of samples. The results indicated that adolescent self-control significantly affected individual physical health and mental health in adulthood. The mechanism analysis suggested that adolescent self-control partially promoted physical and mental health in adulthood by education and income instead of self-control in adulthood. In conclusion, paying attention to the cultivation of self-control before adulthood may be an effective way to improve individual physical and mental health in adulthood. (shrink)

Self-control has gained enormous attention in recent years both in philosophy and the mind sciences, for it has profound implications on so many aspects of human life. Overcoming temptation, improving cognitive functioning, making life-altering decisions, and numerous other challenges all depend upon self-control. But recent developments in the philosophy of mind and in action theory, as well as in psychology, are now testing some of the assumptions about the nature of self-control previously held on purely a (...) priori grounds. New essays in this volume offer fresh insights from a variety of angles: neuroscience; social, cognitive, and developmental psychology; decision theory; and philosophy. While much of the literature on self-control is spread across distinct disciplines and journals, this volume presents for the first time a thorough and truly interdisciplinary exploration of the topic. The essays address four central topics: what self-control is and how it works; temptation and goal pursuit; self-control, morality, and law; and extending self-control. They take up an array of complex and important questions. What is self-control? How is self-control related to willpower? How does inhibitory control work? What are the cultural and developmental origins of beliefs about self-control? How are attempts at self-control hindered or helped by emotions? How do our beliefs about our own ability to deal with temptation influence our behavior? What does the ability to avoid temptation depend on? How should juvenile responsibility be understood, and how should the juvenile justice system be reformed? Can an account of self-control help us understand free will? Combining the most recent scientific research with new frontiers in the philosophy of mind, this volume offers the most definitive guide to self-control to date. (shrink)

Self-control is integral to successful human agency. Without it we cannot extend our agency across time and secure central social, moral, and personal goods. But self-control is not a unitary capacity. In the first part of this paper we provide a taxonomy of self-control and trace its connections to agency and the self. In part two, we turn our attention to the external conditions that support successful agency and the exercise of self-control. We argue (...) that what we call moral security is a critical foundation for agency. Parts three and four explore what happens to agency when moral security is lacking, as in the case of those subject to racism, and those living in poverty. The disadvantages suffered by those who are poor, in a racial minority or other oppressed group, or suffering mental illness or addiction, are often attributed to a lack of individual self-control or personal responsibility. In particular, members of these groups are often seen as irresponsibly focused on short-term pleasures over long-term good, a view underwritten by particular psychological theories of self-control. We explore how narratives about racism and poverty undermine moral security, and limit and distort the possibility of synchronic and diachronic self-control. Where moral security is undermined, the connection between self-control and diachronic goods often fails to obtain and agency contracts accordingly. We close with some preliminary reflections on the implications for responsibility. (shrink)

Do people sometimes exercise self-control in such a way as to bring it about that they do not act on present-directed motivation that continues to be motivationally strongest for a significant stretch of time (even though they are able to act on that motivation at the time) and intentionally act otherwise during that stretch of time? This paper explores the relative merits of two different theories about synchronic self-control that provide different answers to this question. One is due (...) to Sripada (Noûs 1–38, 2012) and the other to Mele (Irrationality, 1987; Autonomous agents, 1995; Motivation and agency, 2003). Special attention is paid to evidence Sripada offers for an affirmative answer to the question, and some guidance is offered on the project of finding evidence for an affirmative answer. (shrink)

Self-control is essential to the Buddhist soteriological project, but it is not immediately clear how we can make sense of it in light of the doctrine of no-self. Exercising control over our actions, thoughts, volitions, and emotions seems to presuppose a conception of self and agency that is not available to the Buddhist. Thus, there seems to be a fundamental mismatch in the practical instructions for exercising control in the Buddhist texts and the doctrine of no-self. (...) In this paper, we develop and defend a general account of self-control that coheres with Abhidarma Buddhism. We defend the Buddhist against recent arguments that self-control depends on an executive self; instead, for the Buddhist, the psychology of self-control must be ‘horizontal’ (for example, one desire winning out over another). However, the characterization of the psychological process isn’t sufficient for a Buddhist theory of self-control. For the Buddhist account is substantive. According to Buddhism, a paradigmatic instance of self-control is an episode in which the desire that wins is a desire that conforms to Buddhist values; by contrast, an episode is not an instance of self-control if the desire that wins is opposed to Buddhist values. We also argue that there are significant resources on which the Buddhist can draw for enhancing self-control despite the denial of self. (shrink)

In the late preschool years children acquire a "theory of mind", the ability to ascribe intentional states, including beliefs, desires and intentions, to themselves and others. In this paper I trace how children's ability to ascribe intentions is derived from parental attempts to hold them responsible for their talk and action, that is, the attempt to have their behavior meet a normative standard or rule. Self-control is children's developing ability to take on or accept responsibility, that is, the ability (...) to ascribe intentions to themselves. This is achieved, I argue, when they possess the ability to hold an utterance or rule in mind in the form of a quoted expression, and second, when they grasp the causal relation between the rule and their action. The account of how children learn to ascribe intention to themselves and others will then be used to explore the larger question of the relations amongst language, intentional states and the ascription and avowal of those states. (shrink)

This paper seeks to analyse an under-discussed kind of self-control, namely the control of thoughts and sensations. I distinguish first-order control from second-order control and argue that their central forms are intentional concentration and intentional mindfulness respectively. These correspond to two forms of meditation, concentration meditation and mindfulness meditation, which have been regarded as central both in the traditions in which the practices arose and in the scientific literature on meditation. I analyse them in terms of their characteristic intentions, (...) distinguish them from concentration and mindfulness in general, and examine the relations between them. Concentration involves keeping the mind focused on a single object, while mindfulness requires noticing whatever mental states occupy the focus of one’s consciousness. In the course of the investigation I examine the role of phenomenology and volition in the activity of meditating, and how they change as meditative capacities develop. (shrink)

What is self-control and how does the concept of self-control relate to the notion of will-power? A widespread philosophical opinion has been that the notion of will-power does not add anything beyond what can be said using other motivational notions, such as strength of desire and intention. One exception is Richard Holton who, inspired by recent research in social psychology, has argued that will-power is a separate faculty needed for persisting in one's resolutions, what he calls 'strength of (...) will'. However, he distinguishes strength of will from self-control. In this paper I argue that will-power is essential also to a certain form of self-control. I support this claim by arguments showing that the traditional philosophical accounts of self-control run into difficulties because they pay insufficient attention to will-power as an independent source of motivation. (shrink)

What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with foundational topics in the philosophy of mind, the theory of action, psychology, and the neurosciences this book provides a unified and comprehensive answer to both questions. Sebastian Watzl shows that attention is a central structural feature of the mind. The first half of the book provides an account of the nature of attention. Attention is prioritizing, it consists in regulating priority structures. (...) Attention is not another element of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. Attention thus integrates the perceptual and intellectual, the cognitive and motivational, and the epistemic and practical. The second half of the book concerns the relationship between attention and consciousness. Watzl argues that attentional structure shapes consciousness into what is central and what is peripheral. The center-periphery structure of consciousness cannot be reduced to the structure of how the world appears to the subject. What it is like for us thus goes beyond the way the world appears to us. On this basis, a new view of consciousness is offered. In each conscious experience we actively take a stance on the world we appear to encounter. It is in this sense that our conscious experience is our subjective perspective. (shrink)

Philosophers routinely invoke self‐control in their theorizing, but major questions remain about what exactly self‐control is. I propose a componential account in which an exercise of self‐control is built out of something more fundamental: basic intrapsychic actions called cognitive control actions. Cognitive control regulates simple, brief states called response pulses that operate across diverse psychological systems (think of one's attention being grabbed by a salient object or one's mind being pulled to think about a certain topic). (...) Self‐control ostensibly seems quite different because it regulates complex, temporally extended states such as emotions and cravings. But critically, these complex states also exhibit important componential structure: They rely on response pulses as a key means by which they bring about action. The overall picture is that self‐control consists of skilled sequences of cognitive control directed against extended streams of response pulses that arise from states such as emotions and cravings, thus preventing these states from being effective in action. The account clarifies the “atoms” of self‐control—the elemental units that get combined in complex ways to produce different kinds of self‐control actions. Surprisingly, the account, which is derived from research in cognitive science, aligns nicely with the commonsense conception of self‐control. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have identified a number of moral and psychological harms associated with the attention economy (Alysworth & Castro, 2021; Castro & Pham, 2020; Williams, 2018). Missing from many of these accounts of the attention economy, however, is what exactly attention is. As a result of this neglect of the cognitive science of attention, many of these accounts are not empirically credible. They rely on oversimplified and unsophisticated accounts of not only attention, but (...) self- control, and addiction as well. Of note are accounts of the attention economy that rely on the ‘brain disease’ rhetoric of addiction and subsequent control failures (Aylsworth & Castro, 2021; Bhargava & Velasquez, 2021), accounts that rely on a strict dichotomy of top-down vs. bottom-up attention (Williams, 2018; Aylsworth & Castro, 2021), and accounts that construe attention as a limited resource (Williams, 2018). -/- Drawing on recent work from the neuroscience and psychology of attention, I demonstrate the shortcomings of these accounts and sketch a way forward for an empirically grounded account of the attention economy. These accounts tend to uphold strict dichotomies of voluntary control (e.g., compulsion versus choice, dual-process models of self-control, and top-down versus bottom-up) that cannot account for the complexities of attentional control, mental agency, and decision-making. As such, these empirically and conceptually impoverished accounts cannot adequately address the current so-called crisis of attention. To better understand the harms associated with the attention economy, we need an empirically responsible account of the nature and function of attention and mental agency. (shrink)

Mental control refers to the ability we have to control our own minds. Its primary expression—attention—has become a popular topic for philosophers in the past few decades, generating the need for a primer on the concept. It is related to self-control, which typically refers to the maintenance of preferred behavior in the face of temptation. While a distinct concept, criticisms of self-control can also be applied to mental control, such as that it implies the existence (...) of an unscientific homunculus-like agent or is not a natural kind. Yet, as this Element suggests, a scientifically-grounded account of mental control remains possible. The manuscript is organized into five main sections, which cover 1) the concept of mental control, 2) the relationship between mental control and attention, 3) the phenomena of meditation and mindwandering, 4) attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and 5) emergence-based accounts of mental control, including an original account by the author. (shrink)

Stereotype threat is a possible reason for difficulties faced by girls and women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The threat experienced due to gender can cause elevated worry during performance situations. That is, if the stereotype that women are not as good as men in math becomes salient, this stereotype activation draws women’s attention to task-irrelevant worry caused by the fear of conforming to the negative stereotype. Increased worry can reduce cognitive resources, potentially leading to (...) performance decrements. We argue that such worry is more pronounced immediately after an unrelated self-control demand, which is assumed to temporarily decrease people’s self-control exertion over their attention and stream of thought. This prediction was examined in an experiment conducted with 102 participating university students enrolled in courses in which math plays a crucial role. After the manipulation of self-control capacity, stereotype threat was induced for the female students, but not the male students. Then, the students were asked to report their thoughts during a math performance situation three times. Multiple-group autoregressive path models revealed that when self-control capacity was relatively low, female compared with male students reported more intense worry in the initial two thought protocols. In contrast, in the relatively high self-control capacity condition, female and male students did not differ significantly in their reported worry at any time. These results expand on previous findings, suggesting that threat effects depend on definable situational self-control conditions. (shrink)

The question “What is the relationship between the self and mental disorder?” is especially important for mental health professionals interested in understanding and treating patients, as most mental disorders are intimately tied to self‐related concerns, such as loss of self‐esteem and self‐control, or diminished agency and autonomy. Philosophy, along with the cognitive and behavioral sciences, offers a wealth of conceptual and empirical resources to answer this question, as the concepts of the self (...) and psychopathology have occupied a central place in these fields since their inception. Interestingly, and unfortunately, however, scientific psychiatry, in its approach to mental disorder as primarily a cluster of signs and symptoms has been slow in acknowledging the advances in conceptualizing and investigating mental disorders in relation to the self. The article addresses this problem and offers solutions for better cross‐fertilization between empirical and philosophical inquiry into the self and psychiatric research on mental disorders. The first part evaluates what empirically informed philosophical inquiry and philosophically informed empirical inquiry offer to the examination of the relationship between the self and mental disorders. The second part argues that scientific psychiatry has missed opportunities to find effective treatments for mental disorders because of its insularity from debates in naturalistic philosophy and cognitive and behavioral sciences. Psychiatry has much to gain from the conceptual, scientific, and clinical resourcefulness of philosophy's collaboration with the cognitive and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty is an insidious problem that besets most tertiary institutions, where considerable resources are expended to prevent and manage students' dishonest actions within academia. Using a mixed retrospective and prospective design this research investigated Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory as a possible explanation for academic dishonesty in 264 university students. The relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was also examined. A significant but small to moderate relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was present, including correlations with (...) general dishonesty, violent crime and drug offending subcategories. These findings suggested that a general criminological theory may be of use in explaining academic dishonesty, but the overall ability of self-control variables to explain academic dishonesty was not strong. Controlled logistic regressions indicated that a significant positive association with academic dishonesty was only present for one of 6 self-control subscales (self-centeredness), and even this association was only present in the prospective study component. A strong relationship between past and future academic dishonesty was present. Implications of the study for institutions are discussed. (shrink)

Research on children's developing theories of mind has contributed to our understanding of the developmental relation of self and action (1) by exploring the relation of the development of self knowledge to the development of knowledge of others' minds and (2) by investigating the relation between theory of mind development and the development of action control. We argue that evidence on theory of mind reasoning in children with deficient action control (ADHD-diagnosed children) is especially relevant to the second (...) issue and we present some first evidence supporting the bi-directional hypothesis, that is, the view that theory of mind leads to improved action control which in turn supports the ability to represent mental states on-line. (shrink)

US criminal courts have recently moved toward seeing juveniles as inherently less culpable than their adult counterparts, influenced by a growing mass of neuroscientific and psychological evidence. In support of this trend, this chapter argues that the criminal law’s notion of responsible agency requires both the cognitive capacity to understand one’s actions and the volitional control to conform one’s actions to legal standards. These capacities require, among other things, a minimal working set of executive functions—a suite of mental processes, (...) mainly realized in the prefrontal cortex, such as planning and inhibition—which remain in significant states of immaturity through late adolescence, and in some cases beyond. Drawing on scientific evidence of how these cognitive and volitional capacities develop in the maturing brain, the authors sketch a scalar structure of juvenile responsibility, and suggest some possible directions for reforming the juvenile justice system to reflect this scalar structure. (shrink)

Impairment of self-control is often said to be a defining feature of addiction. Yet many addicts display what appears to be a considerable amount of control over their drug-oriented actions. Not only are their actions clearly intentional and frequently carried out in a conscious and deliberate manner, there is evidence that many addicts are responsive to a wide range of ordinary incentives and counter-incentives. Moreover, addicts have a wide variety of reasons for using drugs, reasons which often seem to (...) go a long way towards explaining their drug-oriented behavior. Many use drugs, for example, to cope with stressful or traumatic experiences. In this article I argue that some standard philosophical explanations of addicts’ impairment of self-control are inadequate, and propose an alternative. (shrink)

Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference, somehow construed, as essential to having conscious experience. These theories differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal level, rather than at the subpersonal level, the level of mechanism. -/- Working with conceptual resources afforded by pre-existing theories of consciousness that take self-reference to be essential, several attempts have been (...) made to explain seemingly anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. But all are referred away from self. -/- The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior; the theories employed, Higher-Order Thought, Wide Intrinsicality, and Self-Representational. Below I argue that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails. Along the way, since each of these theories seeks at least compatibility with science, I sketch experimental approaches that could be used to adduce support for my position, or indeed for the positions of theorists with whom I disagree. -/- In a concluding section I first identify two presuppositions shared by all of the theorists considered here, and argue that both are either erroneous or misleading. Second, I call attention to divergent paths adopted when attempting to explain alienation experiences: some theorists choose to add a mental ingredient, while others prefer to subtract one. I argue that alienation from experience, action, or body parts could result from either addition or subtraction, and that the two can be incorporated within a comprehensive explanatory framework. Finally, I suggest that this comprehensive framework would require self-referencing of a sort, but self-referencing that occurs solely on the level of mechanism, or the subpersonal level. In adumbrating some features of this “subpersonal self,” I suggest that there might be one respect in which it is prior to conscious experience. (shrink)

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust.Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social (...) commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being.The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence. (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support (...) anti-intellectualism and argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust. Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and (...) social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being. The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence. (shrink)

This study provides evidence supporting the operation of a novel cognitive process of a somatic seat of attention, or ego-center, whose somatic location is under voluntary control and that provides access to differential emotional resources. Attention has typically been studied in terms of what it is directed toward, but it can also be associated with a localized representation in the body image that is experienced as the source or seat of attention—an aspect that has previously only been (...) studied by subjective techniques. Published studies of this phenomenon under terms such as egocenter or self-location suggest that the seat of attention can be situated in various ways within the experienced body, resulting in what are here referred to as different attentional stances. These studies also provide evidence that changes in attentional stance are associated with differences in cognitive skill, emotional temperament, self-construal, and social and moral attitudes, as well as with access to certain states of consciousness. In the present study, EEG results from multiple trials of each of 11 specific attentional stances confirmed that patterns of neural activity associated with the voluntarily control of attentional stances can be reliably measured, providing evidence for a differential neural substrate underlying the subjective location of the seat of attention. Additionally, brain activation patterns for the attentional stances showed strong correlations with EEG signatures associated with specific positive emotional states and with arousal, confirming that differential locations of the seat of attention can be objectively associated with different emotion states, as implied in previous literature. The ability to directly manage the seat of attention into various attentional stances holds substantial potential for facilitating access to specific cognitive and emotional resources in a new way. (shrink)

: The concept of Self-Control carried by contemporary criminology has been put forward in order to catch up with increasing crime rates in society, to prevent crime, and to function in anger control. Works done in this area also include measures that must be taken early in the course of a kind of education to prevent crime in general. we see that in some countries Social and Emotional Learning programs are used in areas such as character education, prevention of (...) violence, anti-drug measures and school discipline. In the Islamic world, the self-control from the earliest times has been dealt with and dealt with as a religious matter. Many of the verses of God and the words of the Prophet are directed at controlling one's self, controlling one's emotions and anger. It has been reported to believers that a way of earning God's love and compassion is self-control. Despite being encouraged by various Islamic sciences, one of the main themes of Islamic mysticism is self-control. Therefore, Islam is one of the main subjects of self-control in education understanding. Summary: In the early 1990s, Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi's "General Theory of Crime" made considerable progress in the theory of control theory and demonstrated remarkable results based on experiments. Along with these, we see that in some countries Social and Emotional Learning programs are used in areas such as character education, prevention of violence, anti-drug measures and school discipline. In 2002 UNESCO undertook the introduction of this program in order to serve the above purposes and sent letters to the education ministries of approximately 140 countries. Today, there are studies aiming to educate the sensation itself instead of using emotion to train. Self-regulation refers to being able to control our emotions and manage them. Some emotions develop over time during the child's brain and biological development and reach maturity level when the development of the nervous system is complete. Pratt and some other researchers found that communalization with parents and neighbourhood conditions predicted the diversity of self-control. They argue that community-level control and socialization are equally important factors contributing to the development of self-control. It has been seen as a virtue for the liberation of man's self and his desires. This virtue was met with the term Sophrosyne in ancient Greek, which means that "one lives his life diligently and intelligently; harmonious balance and wisdom." The Romans and the old Christian church have called it Temperantia, restricting emotional excesses. The subject of self-control and balancing of emotions is also studied in Islamic religion under the name of "Nafs Struggle". In fact, beliefs are emotional patterns. In order for human beings to be able to place their thoughts and beliefs in their native place, they have to be transformed into emotional patterns. For example, "goodness is good to do" expresses a thought. To add the emotional dimension to it, it must be reinforced by confirming that it is nice to do good to people. Emotions that begin to direct man's behaviours certainly shape him according to a reference value. These reference values or, in other words, standard values are determined and imposed by religions or are derived from the moral code of the community. Some scholars have also defined religion as a moral field that regulates psychological and behavioural tendencies by rewarding grieving actions and punishing those who are contrary to common good. Therefore, religion also includes moral concepts; it also affects supernatural thoughts. It is thought that religion, in turn, arouses beliefs and attitudes that prevent personal violence, impiety and dishonesty. In fact, what we call conscience is that the external control power becomes an internal control mechanism. To put it more precisely, it means internalizing these values of powers that represent authority that imposes external controlling thoughts and emotions. Therefore, our conscience in the social and physical environment constitutes the conscience of the things we have developed and the accusations that we have developed. The development of conscience in a person is also linked to the development of education and responsibility he has received. The main goal of religious education is to place the belief in God and to adopt and sustain a whole of values based on God's existence. For a person to know and feel the presence of a person who always sees and controls him will always lead him to a more controlled and supervised life. He who believes that God sees and hears people and that he will be punished or rewarded according to his bad and good behaviours, of course, seeks to control himself. Because in the method of reward and punishment, the aim is to create a mental condition for him by encouraging and loving something. Also, as a result of this operation, the brain learns to set limits on behaviour. This is conscious behaviour. Since consciousness is the information we have about ourselves, we are consciously observing and studying ourselves. The thing that distinguishes human beings from other beings is that they are aware of what they are aware of and that they realize it. If we did not have such a property, it would not be moral and we could not control ourselves. We can only find ourselves in ourselves and without any intermediary. These tools are not only scientific instruments, but also five senses, imaginations and thoughts, which are tools of the mind. Besides, when we add the ability of a person to evaluate and observe himself as an external object, wisdom can be understood when God suggests that we should think about our own nafs. The conscious person who thinks about himself is the one who takes charge of himself and accounts for his soul. To address this, the Messenger of God said: "The wise man,, draws his soul into account and works for the post-mortem; and if he is weak, he will obey God's will and ask for God." The Messenger recommends that a person be curled into himself and think and perceive about the soul, with the following words: "Do not go round with your heart, multiply your condolences and cry." Of course, many arguments have been put in place to ensure that self-control of the person in religious life is ensured. One of these is a feeling. Because the sense of shame requires to be embarrassed by other people, and to behave oneself. The Messenger, when he saw someone among ansar counselling to his brother about the modesty, said, "Certainly, it is by faith." Because the feeling of embarrassment is fed by the fear that the deprivation of social good will live on man. In personal relationships, a person is bound to put a limit on his behaviour in order not to offend others. The sensation of emotion is a feeling of emotion recorded in the frontal area of the brain, covering the social skills. The opposite of shame is insensitivity, impudence and irresponsibility. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between automaticity, control and agency. Indeed, recent philosophical and psychological works play up the incompatibility of automaticity and agency. Specifically, there is a threat of automaticity, for automaticity eliminates agency. Such conclusions stem from a tension between two thoughts: that automaticity pervades agency and yet automaticity rules out control. I provide an analysis of the notions of automaticity and control that maintains a simple connection: automaticity entails the absence of control. An appropriate analysis, however, shows (...) that actions are forms of control and pervasively automatic even if automaticity implies the absence of control. Consequences are drawn for the theory of mental agency and the psychological concepts of automaticity and control. (shrink)

Self-control failure occurs when an individual experiences a conflict between immediate desires and longer-term goals, recognises psychological forces that hinder goal-directed action, tries to resist them but fails in the attempt. Behavioural economists often invoke assumptions about self-control failure to justify proposals for policy interventions. These arguments require workable methods for eliciting individuals’ goals and for verifying occurrences of self-control failure, but developing such methods confronts two problems. First, it is not clear that individuals’ goals are context-independent. (...) Second, facing an actual conflict between a desire and a self-acknowledged goal, a person may consciously choose not to resist the desire, thinking that spontaneity is more important than self-control. We address these issues through an online survey that elicited individuals’ self-reported judgements about the relative importance of self-control and spontaneity in conflicts between enjoyment and health-related goals. To test for context-sensitivity, the judgement-elicitation questions were preceded by a memory recall task which directed participants’ attention either to the enjoyment of acting on desires or to the satisfaction of achieving goals. We found little evidence of context-sensitivity. In both treatments, however, judgements that favoured spontaneity were expressed with roughly the same frequency and strength as judgments that favoured self-control. (shrink)

Self-control failure occurs when an individual experiences a conflict between immediate desires and longer-term goals, recognises psychological forces that hinder goal-directed action, tries to resist them but fails in the attempt. Behavioural economists often invoke assumptions about self-control failure to justify proposals for policy interventions. These arguments require workable methods for eliciting individuals’ goals and for verifying occurrences of self-control failure, but developing such methods confronts two problems. First, it is not clear that individuals’ goals are context-independent. (...) Second, facing an actual conflict between a desire and a self-acknowledged goal, a person may consciously choose not to resist the desire, thinking that spontaneity is more important than self-control. We address these issues through an online survey that elicited individuals’ self-reported judgements about the relative importance of self-control and spontaneity in conflicts between enjoyment and health-related goals. To test for context-sensitivity, the judgement-elicitation questions were preceded by a memory recall task which directed participants’ attention either to the enjoyment of acting on desires or to the satisfaction of achieving goals. We found little evidence of context-sensitivity. In both treatments, however, judgements that favoured spontaneity were expressed with roughly the same frequency and strength as judgments that favoured self-control. (shrink)

Judgments of blame for others are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ (...) mental control, people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared to a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes the regularities referred to via the concept 'self.' This is important, for cognitive science traditionally models the self as a cognitive mediator between perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs. This leads to the assertion that the self causes action. Recent findings in social psychology indicate this is not the case and, as a consequence, certain cognitive scientists model the self as being epiphenomenal. In contrast, the present paper proposes an alternative approach (i.e., the (...) event-control approach) that is based on recently discovered regularities between perception and action. Specifically, these regularities indicate that perception and action planning utilize common neural resources. This leads to a coupling of perception, planning, and action in which the first two constitute aspects of a single system (i.e., the distal-event system) that is able to pre-specify and detect distal events. This distal-event system is then coupled with action (i.e., effector-control systems) in a constraining, as opposed to 'causal' manner. This model has implications for how we conceptualize the manner in which one infers the intentions of another, anticipates the intentions of another, and possibly even experiences another. In conclusion, it is argued that it may be possible to map the concept 'self' onto the regularities referred to in the event-control model, not in order to reify 'the self' as a causal mechanism, but to demonstrate its status as a useful concept that refers to regularities that are part of the natural order. (shrink)

Adaptive behavior critically depends on performance monitoring, the ability to monitor action outcomes and the need to adapt behavior. PM-related brain activity has been linked to guiding decisions about whether action adaptation is warranted. The present study examined whether PM-related brain activity in a flanker task, as measured by electroencephalography, was associated with adaptive behavior in daily life. Specifically, we were interested in the employment of self-control, operationalized as self-control failures, and measured using ecological momentary assessment. Analyses were (...) conducted using an adaptive elastic net regression to predict SCFs from EEG in a sample of 131 participants. The model was fit using within-subject averaged response-locked EEG activity at each electrode and time point within an epoch surrounding the response. We found that higher amplitudes of the error-related negativity were related to fewer SCFs. This suggests that lower error-related activity may relate to lower recruitment of interventive self-control in daily life. Altered cognitive control processes, like PM, have been proposed as underlying mechanisms for various mental disorders. Understanding how alterations in PM relate to regulatory control might therefore aid in delineating how these alterations contribute to different psychopathologies. (shrink)

While temporal preparation has frequently been examined through the manipulation of foreperiods, the role of force level during temporal preparation remains underexplored. In our study, we propose to manipulate mental training of attentional control in order to shed light on the role of the force level and autonomic nervous system in the temporal preparation of an action. Forty subjects, divided into mental training group (n = 20) and without mental training group (n = 20), participated in this (...) study. The influence of the attentional control and force levels on the autonomic nervous system were measured using the skin conductance response and the heart rate variability; the accuracy of the motor responses was measured using a method derived from machine learning. Behaviorally, only the mental training group reinforced its motor and attentional control. When using short foreperiod durations and high force level, motor and attentional control decreased, consistent with the dominant sympathetic system. This resulted in an increased anticipation rate of responses with a higher reaction time compared to the long foreperiods duration and low force level, in which the reaction time significantly decreased, with enhancement of the expected force level, showing consistency with the dominant parasympathetic system. Interestingly, results revealed a predictive relationship between the sympathovagal balance and motor and attentional control during the long foreperiods and low force level. Finally, results demonstrate that attentional mental training leads to the reinforcement of interactions between the autonomic nervous system and attentional processes which are involved in the temporal preparation of a force task. (shrink)

Self-control, the capacity to resist temptations and pursue longer-term goals over immediate gratifications, is crucial in determining the overall shape of our lives, and thereby in our ability to shape our identities. As it turns out, this capacity is intimately linked with our ability to control the direction of our attention. This raises the worry that perhaps social media are making us more easily distracted people, and therefore less able to exercise self-control. Is this so? And is (...) it necessarily a bad thing? This paper analyzes the nature of attention, its vices and virtues, and what currently available evidence has to say about the effects of social media on attention and self-control. The pattern that seems to be emerging is that, although there is an association between higher use of social media and lower attentional control, we do not yet know whether it is social media use that makes people more distracted, or whether those who use social media the most do so because they are more easily distracted. Either way, the rise of the ‘Web 2.0’ does raise questions about whether the virtues of attention will change in the future, and whether this will bring with it a transformation in the way we shape our selves. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes the regularities referred to via the concept 'self.' This is important, for cognitive science traditionally models the self as a cognitive mediator between perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs. This leads to the assertion that the self causes action. Recent findings in social psychology indicate this is not the case and, as a consequence, certain cognitive scientists model the self as being epiphenomenal. In contrast, the present paper proposes an alternative approach (i.e., the (...) event-control approach) that is based on recently discovered regularities between perception and action. Specifically, these regularities indicate that perception and action planning utilize common neural resources. This leads to a coupling of perception, planning, and action in which the first two constitute aspects of a single system (i.e., the distal-event system) that is able to pre-specify and detect distal events. This distal-event system is then coupled with action (i.e., effector-control systems) in a constraining, as opposed to 'causal' manner. This model has implications for how we conceptualize the manner in which one infers the intentions of another, anticipates the intentions of another, and possibly even experiences another. In conclusion, it is argued that it may be possible to map the concept 'self' onto the regularities referred to in the event-control model, not in order to reify 'the self' as a causal mechanism, but to demonstrate its status as a useful concept that refers to regularities that are part of the natural order. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to characterize self-control and to make evident the bearing of this trait of character on our actions, evaluative thinking, and non-evaluative beliefs. In Section I, I focus on action and practical reasoning and advance an account of self-control which applies to both. In Section II, I turn to the bearing of self-control upon our beliefs. I argue there that "doxastic" self-control is properly conceived in accordance with the account developed in Section (...) I. (shrink)

A prevalent assumption among philosophers who believe that people can intentionally deceive themselves (intentionalists) is that they accomplish this by controlling what evidence they attend to. This article is concerned primarily with the evaluation of this claim, which we may call ‘attentionalism’. According to attentionalism, when one justifiably believes/suspects that not-p but wishes to make oneself believe that p, one may do this by shifting attention away from the considerations supportive of the belief that not-p and onto considerations supportive (...) of the belief that p. The details of this theory are elaborated, its theoretical importance is pointed out, and it is argued that the strategy is supposed to work by leading to the repression of one’s knowledge of the unwelcome considerations. However, I then show that the assumption that this is possible is opposed by the balance of a relevant body of empirical research, namely, the thought-suppression literature, and so intentionalism about self-deception cannot find vindication in the attentional theory. (shrink)

During the perception of human actions by robotic assistants, the robotic assistant needs to direct its computational and sensor resources to relevant parts of the human action. In previous work we have introduced HAMMER, a computational architecture that forms multiple hypotheses with respect to what the demonstrated task is, and multiple predictions with respect to the forthcoming states of the human action. To confirm their predictions, the hypotheses request information from an attentional mechanism, which allocates the robot’s resources as a (...) function of the saliency of the hypotheses. In this paper we augment the attention mechanism with a component that considers the content of the hypotheses’ requests, with respect to the content’s reliability, utility and cost. This content-based attention component further optimises the utilisation of the resources while remaining robust to noise. Such computational mechanisms are important for the development of robotic devices that will rapidly respond to human actions, either for imitation or collaboration purposes. (shrink)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational centers and universities in Venezuela have closed their physical plants and are migrating to emergency remote education to continue with academic programs. This empirical study aimed to analyze the predictive capacity of academic self-efficacy and emotional intelligence skills on each of the dimensions of psychological well-being. We employed a cross-sectional predictive design. The sample comprised 277 university students, of which 252 were female. Their ages ranged from 18 to 45 years, with a mean (...) of 20.35. Non-probabilistic chance sampling was used. For data collection, we used an anonymous online form, contacted students by mail, and invited them to participate in the study. Questionnaires were available between 217 and 227 days of decreed quarantine in Venezuela. The results indicated average levels of academic self-efficacy, emotional intelligence: clarity, attention y repair, and psychological well-being. We found differences according to sex and age, specifically in emotional regulation and in bonds of psychological well-being favoring men, respectively. Regarding age, statistically significant differences were found in the group of students older than 21 years with higher perception of psychological well-being and in each of its dimensions. Emotional intelligence and academic self-efficacy were found to be significant predictors of psychological well-being and its dimensions, specifically on control, links, projects, acceptance, and total well-being. It was concluded that emotional intelligence and academic self-efficacy are protective psychological resources of psychological well-being that should be promoted at university to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic on the mental health of young people. (shrink)

Habitual action would still be a tremendously pervasive feature of our agency. And yet, references to habitual action have been marginal at best in contemporary philosophy of action. This neglect is due, at least, to the combination of two ideas. The first is a widespread view of habit as entirely automatic, inflexible, and irresponsive to reasons. The second is philosophy of action’s tendency (dominant at least since Anscombe and Davidson) to focus on explaining action by reference to reasons. Arguably, if (...) habitual behavior is reasons-irresponsive, and if action is explained by reference to reasons, the study of habit would have very little to teach about action. Recently, however, there has been a surge in philosophical interest on habit and habitual action. Novel approaches are challenging the two ideas mentioned above, arguing that (1) habitual behavior is not entirely automatic or inflexible, but instead has a particular kind of flexibility and intentionality; and that (2) acting out of habit can count as a form of acting for reasons, even in the absence of the traditional rationalizing mental states: belief, desire, and intention. -/- The essays contained in this issue move discussions forward in exciting new directions. In what follows we present each paper and situate it within its broader theoretical context, so that this introduction may serve also as an introduction to the topic of habitual action. A crucial lesson that emerges from these essays is a need to move past disputes between philosophical schools or traditions. Rather than combatting between different philosophical factions, an ecumenical approach capable of skillfully bringing together elements from different traditions seems better able to tackle problems that remain unsolved. These problems include (but are not limited to): developing an account of responsibility for habitual action; explaining our ability to perform joint habitual actions; and clarifying the link between habit and self-control. (shrink)

The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the so-called ‘‘attentional-blink’’ deficit: When two targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a rapid stream of events are presented in close temporal proximity, the second target is often not seen. This deficit is believed to result from competition between the two targets for limited attentional resources. Here we show, using performance in an attentional-blink task and scalp-recorded brain potentials, that meditation, or mental training, affects the (...) distribution of limited brain resources. Three months of intensive mental training resulted in a smaller attentional blink and reduced brain-resource allocation to the first target, as reflected by a smaller T1-elicited P3b, a brain-potential index of resource allocation. Furthermore, those individuals that showed the largest decrease in brain-resource allocation to T1 generally showed the greatest reduction in attentional-blink size. These observations provide novel support for the view that the ability to accurately identify T2 depends upon the efficient deployment of resources to T1. The results also demonstrate that mental training can result in increased control over the distribution of limited brain resources. Our study supports the idea that plasticity in brain and mental function exists throughout life and illustrates the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind. (shrink)

Jennings and Nanay argue against my claim that action entails attention by providing putative counterexamples to the claim that action entails a Many–Many Problem. This reply demonstrates that they have misunderstood the central notion of a pure reflex on which my argument depends. A simplified form of the argument from pure reflex to the Many–Many Problem as a necessary feature of agency is given, and putative counterexamples of action without attention are addressed. Attention is present in every (...) action. In passing, the reply discusses how we should assess intuitive claims about attention and mental processing, with emphasis on learning and the automatization of attention in its development as a skill. (shrink)

Common-sense folk psychology and mainstream philosophy of action agree about decisions: these are under an agent's direct control, and are thus intentional actions for which agents can be held responsible. I begin this paper by presenting a problem for this view. In short, since the content of the motivational attitudes that drive deliberation and decision remains open-ended until the moment of decision, it is unclear how agents can be thought to exercise control over what they decide at the moment of (...) deciding. I note that this problem might motivate a non-actional view of deciding?a view that decisions are not actions, but are instead passive events of intention acquisition. For without an understanding of how an agent might exercise control over what is decided at the moment of deciding, we lack a good reason for maintaining commitment to an actional view of deciding. However, I then offer the required account of how agents exercise control over decisions at the moment of deciding. Crucial to this account is an understanding of the relation of practical deliberation to deciding, an understanding of skilled deliberative activity, and the role of attention in the mental action of deciding. (shrink)

The duality of attention is explored by turning our focus to the political and cultural conceptions of automatic attention and deliberate attention, with the former being associated with animality and “uncivilized” behavior and the latter with intelligence and self-mastery. In this article, I trace this ongoing dualism of the mind from early race psychology in the late nineteenth century to twentieth century psychological models including those found in psychoanalysis, behaviorism, neo-behaviorism, and behavioral economics. These earlier studies (...) explicitly or implicitly maintained a deficiency model of controlled attention and other mental processes that were thought to differ between racial groups. Such early models of attention included assumptions that Black and Indigenous peoples were less in control of their attention compared to whites. This racialized model of attention, as seen in the law of economy in the nineteenth century, with similar manifestations in psychoanalysis and neo-behaviorism in the twentieth century, can now be seen in present-day dual-process models as used in current psychological research and behavioral policy. These historical connections show that attention is not a value-neutral term and that attention studies do not stand outside of race and structural racism. (shrink)