Individual Self-regulation Research Articles

Privacy, Option Value, and Feedback

We have confused intuitions about privacy in public. Sometimes we say “if you don’t want something known, don’t say or post it where anyone can see,” even while, at other times, we recognize the more fluid nature of privacy and the value of semi-public space. Over time, we construct privacy-preserving fixes in architecture, norms, and law: we build walls and windowshades; develop understandings of friendship, trust, and confidentiality; and protect some of these boundaries with the Fourth Amendment, statute, regulation, tort, and contract. The environment provides feedback mechanisms, enabling us to adapt to the disclosure problems we experience (individually or societally). We move conversations inside, scold or drop untrustworthy friends, rewrite statutes. Feedback lets us find the boundaries of private contexts and probe the thickness of these membranes. Technological change throws our intuitions off when we don’t see privacy impacts on a meaningful timescale. We get wrong, limited, or misleading feedback about the publicity of our actions and interactions online and offline. Even if we learn of the possibility of online profiling or constant location tracking, we fail to internalize this notice of publicity because it does not match our in-the-moment experience of semi-privacy. We thus end up with divergence between our understanding and our experience of privacy. Prior scholarship has identified various interests that fall under the heading of privacy: dignity, confidentiality, secrecy, presentation of self, harm; it has cataloged the legal responses, giving explanations of law’s development and suggestions for its further adaptation. Scholars have theorized privacy, moving beyond the binary of “secret or not secret” to offer contextual and experiential gradients (Nissenbaum, Solove, Cohen). Often, this scholarship reviews specific problems and situates them in larger context (Ohm, Kerr, Lessig, Rosen). User studies and economic analysis have improved our understanding of the privacy experience, including the gap between expectations and reality (Acquisti & Grossklags; McDonald & Cranor; Jolls, Sunstein & Thaler). Computer science and information theory help us quantify some of the elements we refer to as privacy (Gleick, Shannon, Dwork). Finally, design and systems-engineering literature suggest that feedback mechanisms play an important role in the usability and comprehensibility of individual objects and interfaces and in the ability of a system as a whole to reach stable equilibrium (Norman, Perrow, Simon).This article aims to do three things: 1. Apply the tools of option value to explain the “harm” of technological and contextual breaches of privacy. The financial modeling of real options helps to describe and quantify the value of choice amid uncertainty. Even without knowing all the potential consequences of data misuse, or which ones will in fact come to pass, we can say that unconsented to data collection deprives the individual of options: to disclose on his or her own terms, and to act inconsistent with disclosed information. 2. Introduce a notion of privacy-feedback to bridge the gap between contextual privacy and the secrecy paradigm. Privacy-feedback, through design and social interaction, enables individuals to gauge the publicity of their activities and to modulate their behavior in response. 3. Propose a broader framework for architectural regulation, in which technological feedback can enable individual self-regulation to serve as an alternative to command-and-control legal regulation. Feedback then provides a metric for evaluating proposed privacy fixes: does the fix help its users get meaningful feedback about the degree of privacy of their actions? Does it enable them to preserve disclosure options? Finally, privacy-feedback takes a larger systemic role. If technology and law fail to offer the choices necessary to protect privacy, we can give meta-feedback, changing the law to do better.

Socially Shared Regulation in Collaborative Groups: An Analysis of the Interplay Between Quality of Social Regulation and Group Processes

This study extends prior research on both individual self-regulation and socially shared regulation during group learning to examine the range and quality of the cognitive and behavioral social regulatory sub-processes employed by six small collaborative groups of upper-elementary students (n = 24). Qualitative analyses were conducted based on videotaped observations of groups across a series of three mathematics tasks. Variation in the quality of social regulation as a function of group processes (positive and negative socioemotional interactions, collaborative and non-collaborative interactions) was also considered. Findings suggested that the synergy among the social regulatory processes of planning, monitoring, and behavioral engagement was important for differentiating quality variation between groups. Positive socioemotional interactions and collaboration also appeared to facilitate higher quality social regulation. Implications for comprehensively supporting high quality social regulation, alongside positive socioemotional interactions and collaboration, in small group contexts are discussed.

Regulatory Framing and Collective Action: The Interplay of Individual Self-Regulation and Group Behavior

Two studies examined the relations between regulatory focus and collective action. In Study 1, undergraduate women expressed stronger action intentions when they were primed to consider prevention (ought-self) self-discrepancies than promotion (ideal-self) self-discrepancies, suggesting that collective action is more likely to occur when individuals are prevention- rather than promotion-focused. In Study 2, however, prevention-focused women expressed stronger action intentions in response to security framing, whereas promotion-focused women expressed stronger action intentions in response to achievement framing. This suggests that the relative disinterest in collective action among promotion-focused individuals can be overcome with the appropriate promotion-focused framing. Implications for analyses of both collective action and regulatory focus are discussed.

Adolescents' deliberate self-harm, interpersonal stress, and the moderating effects of self-regulation: A two-wave longitudinal analysis

The predictive effects of peer victimization and harsh parenting on deliberate self-harm were examined. As derived from the experiential avoidance model, the study also tested whether these links were moderated by individual self-regulation approaches. Data were collected at two points in time from 880 junior high school students (mean age = 13.72) in Sweden. Analyses using structural equation modeling revealed that Peer Victimization was predictive of self-harm. Although Harsh Parenting was not predictive of self-harm, this link was moderated by adolescents' gender. No moderating effect of self-regulation was revealed. The study concludes that the high prevalence of deliberate self-harm recently found in community samples of adolescents cannot be prevented without attending to environmental psychosocial factors.

Subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes: Evidence from cortisol analyses

Stress response can be considered a consequence of psychological or physiological threats to the human organism. Elevated cortisol secretion represents a biological indicator of subjective stress. The extent of subjectively experienced stress depends on individual coping strategies or self-regulation skills. Because of their experience with competitive pressure, athletes might show less pronounced biological stress responses during stressful events compared to non-athletes. In the present study, the short version of the Berlin Intelligence Structure Test, a paper-pencil intelligence test, was used as an experimental stressor. Cortisol responses of 26 female Swiss elite athletes and 26 female non-athlete controls were compared. Salivary free cortisol responses were measured 15 minutes prior to, as well as immediately before and after psychometric testing. In both groups, a significant effect of time was found: High cortisol levels prior to testing decreased significantly during the testing session. Furthermore, athletes exhibited reliably lower cortisol levels than non-athlete controls. No significant interaction effects could be observed. The overall pattern of results supports the idea that elite athletes show a less pronounced cortisol-related stress response due to more efficient coping strategies.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Culture and Development of Self-regulation

Across the lifespan, individuals act to achieve desired goals as agents of their own development. A central means for goal attainment is self-regulation – modifying internal processes and behavior to reach one’s goals. Recently, self-regulation has become a topic of intensive research in psychology, with focuses on education, intergroup processes, and consumer behavior. Individuals differ in their preference of goals and also in their ways of reaching these goals. To understand why individuals differ in the ability and motivation to self-regulate, it is key to study the development of self-regulation, taking into account the cultural context. Most research on the development of self-regulation has been carried out with Anglo-Americans, ignoring differences in standards for self-regulation (behavior and emotion regulation) and related strategies for people from different cultural backgrounds. In line with culture-psychological studies on socialization, it is assumed here that dominant cultural values and related cultural models of agency affect both the socialization conditions of the child and the developmental outcomes of self-regulation. This approach allows for an explanation of cultural and individual differences in self-regulation by linking cultural and individual agency. This article integrates recent research and suggests a cultural model of agency and self-regulation. The proposed model goes beyond individual self-regulation and takes into account interpersonal processes of interdependent self-regulation.

Self-assessment, Self-direction, and the Self-regulating Professional

One of the cornerstones of autonomy for any profession is the claim to self-regulation. To be effectively self-regulating, the profession generally depends on the individual practitioner to self-regulate his own maintenance of competence activities. This model of individual self-regulation, in turn, depends on the practitioner's ability to self-assess gaps in competence and willingness to seek out opportunities to redress these gaps when identified. The literature relevant to these processes, however, would suggest this model of individual self-regulation is overly optimistic. We review the literature and describe several difficulties associated with the traditionally held model of individual self-regulation. In particular, research demonstrates repeatedly that 1) self-assessment is not an effective mechanism to identify areas of personal weakness and that 2) even when areas of weakness are obvious to the adult learner, we often avoid engaging in learning in these areas because such learning often takes more energy and commitment than we are willing to expend. Implications of these difficulties for the current model of self-regulation are explored.

Less negative=more positive? Social discrimination as avoidance or approach

A motivational approach to ingroup favoritism based on regulatory focus theory (RFT; Higgins, 1997) is introduced. RFT suggests that individual self-regulation is either more concerned with approaching positive events (promotion focus) or with avoiding negative events (prevention focus). It is suggested that if an individual self-categorizes as a group member, resource allocations to one’s group will be based on these mechanisms of self-regulation. Thus, a promotion focus should engender ingroup favoritism during the distribution of positive resources but not during the distribution of negative resources, whereas a prevention focus should engender ingroup favoritism for negative but not for positive resources. The results of two studies support this prediction based on momentary and chronic regulatory focus. The self-regulation approach to ingroup favoritism provides an explanation for social discrimination in the distribution of positive and negative resources.

`Dead Selves': The Birth of the Modern Career

The rise of the modern career based on merit and open competition rather than connections or seniority was associated with the slow emergence of the managerial bureaucracy. These processes unfolded in Scottish banking in the 20 years before 1914. Inspection of local adherence to centrally specified procedures was critical to both processes. Inspectors developed and maintained central files that charted the individual's technical competence and conformity to the bank's cultural expectations. The staff ledgers provided a continuous record of salary, promotion, and punishment over an individual's entire career. Although there was no formal categorization or quantification of performance or attitude, the staff ledgers did begin to open up the individual to scrutiny by the centre. For the bank, the career was a highly efficient form of supervision that relied heavily upon individual's self-regulation. For the individual, conformity resulted in promotion and career progression. The career was not simply an economic mechanism but also a moral project without end of hope of completion.

The Index of Self-Regulation: Development and Psychometric Analysis

This paper describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a measure of individual self-regulation in the maintenance of health behavior change. Items were developed from inductively generated data to index dimensions of self-regulation in behavioral change (Fleury, 1991). Quantification of Index of Self-Regulation (ISR) content validity was supported through the ratings of 10 experts, following criteria established by Imle and Atwood (1988). The instrument was tested in successive steps with 146 individuals who were participating in an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program for reliability and validity, including internal consistency reliability and three forms of validity assessment (content validity, criterion-related validity, and construct validity). The three subscales of Stimulus Control, Reconditioning, and Behavioral Monitoring demonstrated internal consistency ranging from .73-.76. Total scale alpha was .87. Initial estimates of criterion-related and construct validity were documented with correlations between ISR subscales and theoretically related criterion measures (.20-.47). With refinement the ISR will provide a basis for tailoring and evaluating clinical interventions designed to enhance motivation in the maintenance of health behavior change.

Transferring Individual Self-Regulation Processes from Arts to Academics

Transferring Individual Self-Regulation Processes from Arts to Academics

Modalities of compensation of cerebral circulation through the circle of Willis in stenoses and occlusions of extracranial arteries.

We have studied the intracranial cerebral circulation in 6 patients with bilateral ischaemic lesions of the internal carotid artery in the extracranial segment (2 significant bilateral stenosis cases; 1 case with bilateral thrombosis and 3 cases of unilateral thrombosis and significant contralateral stenosis). All the patients were males, their age being between the 5th and 8th decade. In a single case the neurological examination showed secondary left hemiplegia and recent right paresis of remittent type, while the other 5 patients had only transitory ischaemic attacks with hemiparesis or transitory aphasia. The lesions were revealed by means of duplex system echotomography (Aloka-Hellige Model SSD 630) and spectral analysis of Doppler signal (Vasoscan-Sonicaid) and they were confirmed later by bilateral carotid arteriography in all patients. The intracranial circulation was also followed up by non-invasive methods, making use of spectral-analysis of the Doppler signal with pulsed wave on TC-2 64-B apparatus. The cases studied by us, which present pathogenic situations more rarely encountered, have shown that none of them observed a 'mathematical model' of compensation of blood flow (BF). More exactly, 2 patients with the same type of lesions and topography did not have a unique model of compensation of BF. It seems that both the possibilities of individual self-regulation of cerebral BF and the extracerebral factors, especially those belonging to cardiac activity, are decisive in the compensatory activity of cerebral circulation, while the modalities in which this is accomplished depend chiefly upon the functional condition of the collateral arteries as a whole.

Concordance among self-regulated responses: is self-regulatory ability a psychophysiological "trait"?

The purposes of this study were to examine whether or not self-regulation of physiological responses demonstrates day-to-day reliability, to determine the degree of individual subject consistency (or concordance) in the ability to self-regulate across several different physiological responses, and, finally, to explore the impact of biofeedback training on interresponse concordance. Twenty normal subjects participated in six bidirectional self-regulation sessions-the first and last sessions involving instructions only, and the remainder, biofeedback. Self-regulation scores consisted of the absolute difference between increase and decrease trial means. The average test-retest reliability coefficients (rs) for the self-regulation scores, across the four biofeedback sessions, were a highly significant .50, .68, .30, and .47 for EEG, EMG, HR, and SCL, respectively. By contrast, the average concordance among the self-regulation scores for the four feedback sessions, estimated by Kendall's coefficient of concordance, was a marginally significant 39% of the possible variance of the rank sums. This corresponds to an average between-response rs value only of .19. The concordance level from the initial no-feedback (i.e., instructions only) session was not significant. Multivariate concordance levels did increase during the first three feedback sessions, but declined at the fourth, and again was nonsignificant during the final no-feedback session. Among the individual self-regulation response pairings, only the EEG/EMG combination was consistently associated during the no-feedback sessions. The present results suggest that self-regulatory ability is neither a highly unitary "trait"-like phenomenon nor an entirely response-specific event, but may vary considerably as a function of subject factors, or the situational circumstances, under which it is measured.

ETHICS IN GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH∗

Ethical dilemmas involving issues of harm-benefit, privacy, deception, and sponsor relations are encountered frequently in geographical research. Geographers have not always been sensitive to ethical issues, nor have they always been able to reconcile their obligations to understanding and knowledge with those of respecting the dignity and integrity of research subjects. This paper reviews these fundamental ethical concerns. Four strategies for handling ethical difficulties are reviewed: individual self-regulation, disciplinary responses, institutional controls, and external controls. Individual self-regulation is recommended.