Psychology of Self-Regulation: Cognitive, Affective, and Motivational Processes

by Joseph P. Forgas (Editor), Roy F. Baumeister (Editor), Dianne M. Tice (Editor)

The ability to regulate and control our behaviors is a key accomplishment of the human species, yet the psychological mechanisms involved in self-regulation remain incompletely understood. This book presents contributions from leading international researchers who survey the most recent developments in this fascinating area. The chapters shed new light on the subtle and often subconscious ways that the people seek to regulate their thoughts, feelings and behaviors in everyday social life. The contributions seek answers to such intriguing questions How can we improve our ability to control our actions? How do people make decisions about which goals to pursue? How do we maintain and manage goal-oriented behavior? What happens when we run out of self-regulation resources? Can we match people and the regulatory demands of to specific tasks so as to optimize performance? What role does self-regulation play in sports performance, in maintaining successful relationships, and in managing work situations? The book offers a highly integrated and representative coverage of this important field, and is suitable as a core textbook in advanced courses dealing with social behavior and the applications of psychology to real-life problems.

Genres: Psychology

356 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Tim Gannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is composed of 19 chapters from the Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology - They cover motivational, affective and cognitive processes in self regulation. They also look at self regulation within goal oriented behavior and interpersonal processes. Some chapters were better than others but it was quite fascinating.

It posits that the mind has finite resources. If you are involved in any cognitive or affective task, it will use up some of these finite resources in the execution of those tasks. Your ability to self regulate in future tasks is then impacted by what remaining resources are available. For example, your ability to work hard or keep to your diet is often better in the morning than the evening. Self regulation theory would posit this is due to more resources in the morning that allow you to better self regulate your behavior toward your chosen goals.

[Utari]

good