Self-regulatory Failure Research Articles

Why Don't You Go to Bed on Time? A Daily Diary Study on the Relationships between Chronotype, Self-Control Resources and the Phenomenon of Bedtime Procrastination.

Background: This daily diary study investigates the phenomenon of bedtime procrastination. Bedtime procrastination is defined as going to bed later than intended, without having external reasons for doing so. We highlight the role chronotype (interindividual differences in biological preferences for sleep-wake-times) plays for bedtime procrastination. Moreover, we challenge the view that bedtime procrastination is the result of a lack of self-regulatory resources by investigating momentary self-regulatory resources as a predictor of day-specific bedtime procrastination.Methods: One-hundred and eight employees working in various industries completed a general electronic questionnaire (to assess chronotype and trait self-control) and two daily electronic questionnaires (to assess momentary self-regulatory resources before going to bed and day-specific bedtime procrastination) over the course of five work days, resulting in 399 pairs of matched day-next-day measurements.Results: Results of multilevel regression analyses showed that later chronotypes (also referred to as evening types or ‘owls’) tended to report more bedtime procrastination on work days. Moreover, for late chronotypes, day-specific bedtime procrastination declined over the course of the work week. This pattern is in line with expectations derived from chronobiology and could not be explained by trait self-control. In addition, on evenings on which employees had less self-regulatory resources available before going to bed—compared to evenings on which they had more self-regulatory resources available before going to bed—employees showed lower bedtime procrastination. This finding contradicts the prevailing idea that bedtime procrastination is the result of a lack of self-regulatory resources.Conclusion: The findings of this study provide important implications for how bedtime procrastination should be positioned in the field of procrastination as self-regulatory failure and for how bedtime procrastination should be dealt with in practice.

Life Goals Increase Self-regulation among Male Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder

ABSTRACTBackground: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been conceptualized as a chronic self-regulation failure. Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the most probable pathways related to self-regulation among patients with AUD. In this study, a hypothetical model was proposed that focused on the relationship between risk factors (extrinsic life goals, emotion dysregulation) and protective factors (intrinsic life goals, self-control, and abstinence self-efficacy). Methods: Male patients with AUD (N = 188) were recruited from alcohol centers of four psychiatric hospitals between March 2015 and September 2015. All participants completed psychological assessments, including the Future Oriented Goals Scale (FOGS), the Alcohol Abstinence Self-Efficacy Scale (AASE), the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) as well as sociodemographic characteristics. Results: The final model was found to be a good fit to data. In testing indirect effects, it was shown that intrinsic life goals via emotion dysregulation, self-control, and alcohol abstinence self-efficacy decreased alcohol self-regulation failure. On the other hand, extrinsic life goals via these factors increased alcohol self-regulation failure. Conclusions/Importance: These results suggest that intrinsic goals might indirectly be the important and protective factors for AUD. Moreover, the findings implicate that self-regulation through goal setting may be necessary to alleviate symptoms and improve function among patients with AUD.

Work Role Stressors, Bottom-Line Mentality, and the Mediating Role of Self-Regulation Failure

Work Role Stressors, Bottom-Line Mentality, and the Mediating Role of Self-Regulation Failure

Coordination of Self- and Parental-Regulation Surrounding Type I Diabetes Management in Late Adolescence.

Type 1 diabetes management involves self- and social-regulation, with past research examining components through individual differences unable to capture daily processes. Dynamical systems modeling was used to examine the coordinative structure of self- and social-regulation (operationalized as parental-regulation) related to daily diabetes management during late adolescence. Two hundred and thirty-six late adolescents with type 1 diabetes (M age = 17.77 years, SD = .39) completed a 14-day diary reporting aspects of self- (e.g., adherence behaviors, cognitive self-regulation failures, and positive and negative affect) and parental-regulation (disclosure to parents, knowledge parents have, and help parents provide). Self-regulation functioned as one coordinative structure that was separate from parental-regulation, where mothers and fathers were coordinated separately from each other. Mothers' perceived helpfulness served as a driver of returning adolescents back to homeostasis. The results illustrate a dynamic process whereby numerous facets of self- and social-regulation are coordinated in order to return diabetes management to a stable state.

Motive-goal congruence moderates the use of automatic self-regulation.

We tested whether the fit between individuals' motives and goal properties predicts efficiency of implicit self-regulation. Participants' (German university students; Mage = 22; 64% female) implicit motives measurement (Multi-Motive Grid) was followed by assessment of implicit self-regulation in differently framed tasks. In Study 1 (N = 45), positive implicit evaluations of stimuli relating to an achievement goal (studying) were used as an indicator of implicit self-regulation. Study 2 (N = 70) framed a laboratory task as either achievement or power related, thus experimentally controlling the goal's properties, and assessed implicit evaluations for task-related stimuli with an evaluative priming paradigm. Study 3 (N = 67) contrasted playing a game framed as agency related (achievement, power) with a control condition. Implicit evaluations of task-related stimuli were assessed as an indicator of self-regulation with an approach/avoidance task. In Study 1, implicit positive evaluations of an achievement goal were positively related to participants' achievement motive. Because of similarities between achievement and power, implicit positive evaluations of task-related stimuli were positively related to the achievement motive in both conditions of Study 2. In Study 3, positive implicit evaluations of the task were positively related to the agency motives only in the agency condition. Congruence between individuals' implicit motives and goal properties boosts implicit self-regulation, thus identifying a promising predictor for success and failure in self-regulation that potentially mediates effects of goal-motive fit on goal pursuit.

On the Spur of the Moment: Intrinsic Predictors of Impulse Sports Betting.

Betting on impulse, without thoughtful consideration, research or informed decision-making, may cause financial and other harms and lead to the development of gambling problems. Impulse betting undermines responsible consumption of gambling because it reflects self-regulatory failure, impaired control, unreflective decision-making and betting more than planned. In this paper we define impulse gambling and report on a study that aimed to understand more about the intrinsic characteristics of sports bettors who have a greater tendency to bet on impulse. Specifically, the study aimed to identify behavioural, psychological and socio-demographic predictors of impulse sports betting. A sample of 1816 Australian sports bettors completed an online survey that measured the proportion of their bets placed on impulse both before and during sporting events, as well as bets that were researched and planned in advance. Impulse betting was common, accounting for nearly one-half of all past-year sports bets by respondents. Over three-quarters of respondents had placed one or more impulse bets in the last year and one in seven respondents had made all of their sports bets on impulse. More impulsive sports bettors were characterised as having higher trait impulsiveness, higher problem gambling severity, more frequent sports betting and a shorter history of sports betting. They favoured betting on in-match contingencies instead of overall match outcomes. While health promotion strategies are needed to discourage impulse betting, research into contextual factors that arouse urges to bet would also provide direction for harm minimisation measures that help consumers to resist impulsive betting decisions.

The Influence of Purpose in Life on Alcohol Self-Regulation Failure Among Male Inpatients with Alcohol Use Disorder: the Mediation Effects of Self-Control and Abstinence Self-Efficacy

The aim of this study was to examine whether both self-control and alcohol abstinence self-efficacy mediate the relationship between purpose in life and alcohol self-regulation failure among male inpatients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). A total of 140 male patients with AUD were recruited from alcohol centers of four psychiatric hospitals in South Korea. All participants completed psychological assessments, including the Purpose in Life, the Alcohol Abstinence Self-Efficacy Scale, the Brief Self-Control Scale, and the Alcohol Self-Regulation Failure Scale. As hypothesized, the indirect effect analysis found that both self-control and abstinence self-efficacy may fully mediate the effects of purpose in life on alcohol self-regulation because the total effect was significant, but the direct effect was not significant. Moreover, bootstrap analysis found that the indirect effects were statistically significant. In conclusion, the effects of self-control and alcohol abstinence self-efficacy might not have different mediation effects on the relationship between purpose in life and alcohol self-regulation failure. These results suggest that both to enhance self-efficacy and self-control ability and to find purpose in life are important for AUD treatment.

Predicting Regulatory Compliance in Beer Advertising on Facebook.

The prevalence of alcohol advertising has been growing on social media platforms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate alcohol advertising on Facebook for regulatory compliance and thematic content. A total of 50 Budweiser and Bud Light ads posted on Facebook within 1 month of the 2015 NFL Super Bowl were evaluated for compliance with a self-regulated alcohol advertising code and for thematic content. An exploratory sensitivity/specificity analysis was conducted to determine if thematic content could predict code violations. The code violation rate was 82%, with violations prevalent in guidelines prohibiting the association of alcohol with success (Guideline 5) and health benefits (Guideline 3). Overall, 21 thematic content areas were identified. Displaying the product (62%) and adventure/sensation seeking (52%) were the most prevalent. There was perfect specificity (100%) for 10 content areas for detecting any code violation (animals, negative emotions, positive emotions, games/contests/promotions, female characters, minorities, party, sexuality, night-time, sunrise) and high specificity (>80%) for 10 content areas for detecting violations of guidelines intended to protect minors (animals, negative emotions, famous people, friendship, games/contests/promotions, minorities, responsibility messages, sexuality, sunrise, video games). The high prevalence of code violations indicates a failure of self-regulation to prevent potentially harmful content from appearing in alcohol advertising, including explicit code violations (e.g. sexuality). Routine violations indicate an unwillingness to restrict advertising content for public health purposes, and statutory restrictions may be necessary to sufficiently deter alcohol producers from repeatedly violating marketing codes. Violations of a self-regulated alcohol advertising code are prevalent in a sample of beer ads published on Facebook near the US National Football League's Super Bowl. Overall, 16 thematic content areas demonstrated high specificity for code violations. Alcohol advertising codes should be updated to expressly prohibit the use of such content.

A critique of the construct validity of active procrastination

Although research demonstrates that procrastination is an instance of self-regulation failure with deleterious consequences, Chu and Choi (2005) have defined a new construct called active procrastination. Active procrastination is the deliberate deferral of tasks to the last minute resulting in positive outcomes despite the delay. The present study examined and challenged the construct validity of active procrastination. We used key defining characteristics of procrastination (e.g., self-regulation, intention-action gap), correlates (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs, conscientiousness) and related outcomes (e.g., stress, depression) as identified in the extant research literature to re-examine the relations that define the construct's nomological network. Results revealed that active procrastination is heterogeneous in nature consisting of two theoretically and empirically distinct constructs: purposeful and arousal delay. Correlations and a Principle Components Analysis failed to replicate the nomological network of active procrastination demonstrated in previous research, and we argue that it is more appropriately construed as a deliberate delay that is purposeful, not procrastination. Limitations associated with the active procrastination construct, empirical evidence and the corresponding inferences in developing the Active Procrastination Scale are discussed.

Procrastination as a Self-Regulation Failure: The Role of Impulsivity and Intrusive Thoughts.

Procrastination has been described as the quintessence of self-regulatory failure. This study examines the relationships between this self-regulatory failure and other manifestations of self-regulation problems, namely impulsivity and intrusive thoughts. One hundred and forty-one participants completed questionnaires assessing procrastination, impulsivity (in particular, the urgency and lack of perseverance dimensions), and intrusive thoughts (i.e., rumination and daydreaming). Main results show that urgency mediated the association between rumination and procrastination, whereas rumination did not mediate the relation between urgency and procrastination. Lack of perseverance mediated the association between daydreaming and procrastination, and daydreaming mediated the relation between lack of perseverance and procrastination. This study highlights the role of impulsivity and intrusive thoughts in procrastination, specifies the links between these self-regulation problems, and provides insights into their (potential) underlying mechanisms. It also opens interesting prospects for management strategies for implementing targeted psychological interventions to reduce impulsive manifestations and/or thought control difficulties accompanying procrastination.

Inflammation, Self-Regulation, and Health: An Immunologic Model of Self-Regulatory Failure

Self-regulation is a fundamental human process that refers to multiple complex methods by which individuals pursue goals in the face of distractions. Whereas superior self-regulation predicts better academic achievement, relationship quality, financial and career success, and lifespan health, poor self-regulation increases a person’s risk for negative outcomes in each of these domains and can ultimately presage early mortality. Given its centrality to understanding the human condition, a large body of research has examined cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of self-regulation. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to specific biologic processes that may underlie self-regulation. We address this latter issue in the present review by examining the growing body of research showing that components of the immune system involved in inflammation can alter neural, cognitive, and motivational processes that lead to impaired self-regulation and poor health. Based on these findings, we propose an integrated, multilevel model that describes how inflammation may cause widespread biobehavioral alterations that promote self-regulatory failure. This immunologic model of self-regulatory failure has implications for understanding how biological and behavioral factors interact to influence self-regulation. The model also suggests new ways of reducing disease risk and enhancing human potential by targeting inflammatory processes that affect self-regulation.

Error processing deficits in academic procrastinators anticipating monetary punishment in a go/no-go study

Procrastination is a failure of self-regulation in which people delay some actions despite knowing that their behavior will lead to discomfort. Although some previous studies have revealed a significant relationship between procrastination, impulsivity and poorer executive control, and indicated that encountering negative emotions escalates procrastination, this evidence has mainly come from questionnaire-based research. This study aimed at investigating executive control in individuals with high and low academic procrastination tendencies using monetary go/no-go task that was performed in three following contexts: punishing for errors, rewarding correct responses, and a neutral condition. Results revealed executive dysfunction in academic procrastinators in the context of aversive motivation. Specifically, in the punishment condition this group showed reduced post-error-slowing and longer reaction times than low procrastinating controls. However, the two groups did not differ with regard to various indicators of executive control in the neutral and reward conditions. Questionnaires revealed greater susceptibility to punishment in high than low procrastinating students but there were no group differences in the sensitivity to reward. This study suggests that error-processing deficits occurring in emotionally negative contexts may hinder adjustments of faulty behaviors in procrastinators and reduce their level of performance and intensify negative emotions by means of a vicious cycle.

Reconceptualizing self-defeating work behavior for management research

Self-defeating work behavior (SDWB) is a common and costly behavior that is not adequately incorporated into management research. We argue there are two reasons for this. First, the construct has not been adequately defined for management scholars. This has hindered grounding the construct in the organizational context and created confusion about differences between SDWB and related constructs like deviant work behavior (DWB). Second, the underlying nature of SDWB is not well understood by management scientists. To stimulate management research on a costly and arguably understudied construct, we provide a definition of SDWB and use the definition to clarify relations between SDWB and DWB. We then proffer two research propositions to guide future management research based on two salient attributes of SDWB: 1) self-regulation failure, and 2) the habitual nature of SDWB. Finally, we demonstrate how investigating the two research propositions can open new territories for studying SDWB in the workplace.

No Need for the Disease Label: Choice is Complicated. Reply to Heather

Despite its historical contribution, Heather sees the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) as failing to relieve stigma, increasing fatalism, and fundamentally wrong. He also sees “choice” as partly volitional and partly unconscious, implying no moral violation. I agree on all counts. Heather then presents a disorder-of-choice (DOC) model of addiction, highlighting the failure of self-regulation with respect to immediate goals. Not only do I endorse such modeling, but the neural mechanisms I describe may help to explicate it more thoroughly.

Psychological and neural contributions to appetite self-regulation.

ObjectiveReview the state-of-the-science on psychological and neural contributions to appetite self-regulation in the context of obesity.MethodsThree content areas (neural systems and cognitive functions; parenting and early childhood development; and goal setting and goal striving) served as examples of different perspectives on the psychological and neural factors that contribute to appetite dysregulation in the context of obesity. Talks were initially delivered at a workshop consisting of experts in these three content areas and then content areas were further developed through a review of the literature.ResultsSelf-regulation of appetite involves a complex interaction between multiple domains, including cognitive, neural, social, and goal-directed behaviors and decision-making. Self-regulation failures can results from any of these factors, and the resulting implications for obesity should be considered in light of each domain. In some cases, self-regulation appears to be amenable to intervention; however, this does not appear to be universally true, which has implications for both prevention and intervention efforts.ConclusionsAppetite regulation is a complex, multi-factorial construct. When considering its role in the obesity epidemic, it is advisable to consider these various contributions together to best inform prevention and treatment efforts.

Visual attention in violent offenders: Susceptibility to distraction

Impairments in executive functioning give rise to reduced control of behavior and impulses, and are therefore a risk factor for violence and criminal behavior. However, the contribution of specific underlying processes remains unclear. A crucial element of executive functioning, and essential for cognitive control and goal-directed behavior, is visual attention. To further elucidate the importance of attentional functioning in the general offender population, we employed an attentional capture task to measure visual attention. We expected offenders to have impaired visual attention, as revealed by increased attentional capture, compared to healthy controls. When comparing the performance of 62 offenders to 69 healthy community controls, we found our hypothesis to be partly confirmed. Offenders were more accurate overall, more accurate in the absence of distracting information, suggesting superior attention. In the presence of distracting information offenders were significantly less accurate compared to when no distracting information was present. Together, these findings indicate that violent offenders may have superior attention, yet worse control over attention. As such, violent offenders may have trouble adjusting to unexpected, irrelevant stimuli, which may relate to failures in self-regulation and inhibitory control.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can also hurt me: The relationship between customer verbal aggression and employee incivility.

Customer service employees tend to react negatively to customer incivility by demonstrating incivility in return, thereby likely reducing customer service quality. Research, however, has yet to uncover precisely what customers do that results in employee incivility. Through transcript and computerized text analysis in a multilevel, multisource, mixed-method field study of customer service events (N = 434 events), we found that employee incivility can occur as a function of customer (a) aggressive words, (b) second-person pronoun use (e.g., you, your), (c) interruptions, and (d) positive emotion words. First, the positive association between customer aggressive words and employee incivility was more pronounced when the verbal aggression included second-person pronouns, which we label targeted aggression. Second, we observed a 2-way interaction between targeted aggression and customer interruptions such that employees demonstrated more incivility when targeted customer verbal aggression was accompanied by more (vs. fewer) interruptions. Third, this 2-way interaction predicting employee incivility was attenuated when customers used positive emotion words. Our results support a resource-based explanation, suggesting that customer verbal aggression consumes employee resources potentially leading to self-regulation failure, whereas positive emotion words from customers can help replenish employee resources that support self-regulation. The present study highlights the advantages of examining what occurs within customer-employee interactions to gain insight into employee reactions to customer incivility. (PsycINFO Database Record

A balance of activity in brain control and reward systems predicts self-regulatory outcomes.

Previous neuroimaging work has shown that increased reward-related activity following exposure to food cues is predictive of self-control failure. The balance model suggests that self-regulation failures result from an imbalance in reward and executive control mechanisms. However, an open question is whether the relative balance of activity in brain systems associated with executive control (vs reward) supports self-regulatory outcomes when people encounter tempting cues in daily life. Sixty-nine chronic dieters, a population known for frequent lapses in self-control, completed a food cue-reactivity task during an fMRI scanning session, followed by a weeklong sampling of daily eating behaviors via ecological momentary assessment. We related participants’ food cue activity in brain systems associated with executive control and reward to real-world eating patterns. Specifically, a balance score representing the amount of activity in brain regions associated with self-regulatory control, relative to automatic reward-related activity, predicted dieters’ control over their eating behavior during the following week. This balance measure may reflect individual self-control capacity and be useful for examining self-regulation success in other domains and populations.

“Glued to the Tube”: The Interplay Between Self-Control, Evening Television Viewing, and Bedtime Procrastination

There is ample evidence that media use displaces sleep, but little theory about the mechanism that explains this. We studied sleep displacement as a self-control issue: People postpone going to bed because they have trouble ending their media exposure. We therefore modeled television viewing (habitual viewing, deficient TV self-regulation, and viewing volume) as a mediator of the effect of trait self-control on bedtime procrastination. A random sample of 821 adults participated in face-to-face interviews using standardized questionnaires. Lower self-control was associated with more bedtime procrastination. This relationship was mediated by habitual viewing, which led to less bedtime procrastination, and deficient TV self-regulation, which led to more bedtime procrastination. Evening viewing volume was not a significant mediator. Our results support the idea that (1) self-regulatory failure over television viewing can partly explain the common struggle with bedtime, and (2) strong viewing habits seem to inhibit bedtime procrastination.

Barriers to postpartum screening for type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study of women with previous gestational diabetes.

IntroductionRisk of developing type 2 diabetes is increased in women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Postpartum glycemic screening is recommended in women with recent GDM. But this screening rate is low and the reasons are unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of Iranian women with recent GDM on barriers of postpartum screening for diabetes.MethodsThis qualitative study was conducted in Tehran, Iran in 2016. Semi-structured interview was used for data collection. 22 women with recent GDM were interviewed. These women gave birth in Tehran hospitals at a minimum of 6 months before interview. The missed screening defined as not attending to laboratory for Fasting Blood Sugar and/or Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, 6 week to 6 month after their child birthing. The data was analyzed by content analysis method.ResultsThemes and sub-themes that illustrated the barriers to postpartum diabetes screening were: inadequate education (about developing diabetes in the future, implementation of the screening, and glucometer validity in diagnosis of diabetes), perceiving the screening as difficult (feeling comfortable with the glucometer, poor laboratory conditions, issues related to the baby/babies, and financial problems), improper attitudes toward the screening (unwilling to get diagnosed, not giving priority to oneself, having false beliefs) and procrastination (gap to intention and action, self-deception and self-regulation failure).ConclusionWomen with recent GDM reported several barriers for postpartum diabetes screening. This study help to develop the evidence-based interventions for improving this screening rate.