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Metacognition is important for self‐regulated learning, and it has recently been argued that it may play an important role in self‐control more generally. We studied multiple aspects of metacognition in self‐control, namely metacognitive knowledge including a person's repertoire ("toolbox") of different self‐regulatory strategies, metacognitive regulation (planning, monitoring, and evaluation), and polyregulation (using more self‐regulatory strategies in a single self‐control conflict) as predictors of people's self‐control success in daily life. In a preregistered experience sampling study, N = 503 participants reported their self‐control conflicts up to eight times per day for 10 days, yielding 9,639 reports of daily self‐control conflicts. Analyses showed that higher levels of metacognitive knowledge, planning, monitoring, evaluation, and polyregulation as well as a larger strategy repertoire were associated with higher levels of success in resolving daily self‐control conflicts. Additionally, higher levels of trait self‐control were associated with higher levels of metacognitive knowledge, planning, and monitoring. These findings highlight the importance of metacognition and polyregulation for successful self‐control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-control is the ability to (1) initiate, and (2) persist in boring, difficult or disliked activity, and to (3) inhibit impulses to act. We explored the self-regulatory strategies that people use for these three types of self-control conflicts and their subjective efficacy as a function of conflict type. In addition, we hypothesized that people who more frequently create strategy-situation fit by tying strategies to the conflict types they are effective for, are more successful at self-control. A pilot study identified 22 different self-regulatory strategies that could be used for more than one type of self-control conflict. We then used a large data set from two pooled experience sampling datasets (n = 14,067 reported self-control conflicts) to quantify these strategies' popularity and subjective efficacy in daily life. Eight strategies were positively and three negatively associated with subjective self-regulatory success but subjective efficacy often depended on type of conflict: Some strategies were effective and some maladaptive only for some types of self-control conflicts. Individuals who created strategy-situation fit for some strategies also reported greater self-regulatory success, as hypothesized. We discuss regulatory flexibility as a crucial component of good self-control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-control has predominantly been characterized as a domain-general individual difference, assuming that highly self-controlled individuals are generally, that is, irrespective of domain, better at resisting their desires. However, qualitative differences in the domains in which these desires emerge and how individuals interact with these domains have rarely been examined. We re-analyzed three experience sampling datasets (N participants = 431, N observations = 15,962) and found that person × domain interactions predicted significant additional variance in momentary self-control above and beyond person differences, ranging from additional 6.2% of variance in desire strength to 17.0% of variance in conflict strength. Moreover, person × domain interactions in resistance strength predicted significantly more variance in resistance success than person or domain differences. Nevertheless, the number of individual resistance profiles was too diverse to be meaningfully reduced to a core set of latent resistance profiles. Thus, our results demonstrate the importance of considering person × domain interactions in future investigations of self-control and show that there is great diversity in how and how successfully different people interact with their self-control conflicts in different domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on self-control has increasingly acknowledged the importance of self-regulatory strategies, with strategies in earlier stages of the developing tempting impulse thought to be more effective than strategies in later stages. However, recent research on emotion regulation has moved away from assuming that some strategies are per se and across situations more adaptive than others. Instead, strategy use that is variable to fit situational demands is considered more adaptive. In the present research, we transfer this dynamic process perspective to self-regulatory strategies in the context of persistence conflicts. We investigated eight indicators of strategy use (i.e., strategy intensity, instability, inertia, predictability, differentiation, diversity, and within- and between-strategy variability) in an experience sampling study (N = 264 participants with 1,923 observations). We found that variability between strategies was significantly associated with self-regulatory success above and beyond mean levels of self-regulatory strategy use. Moreover, the association between trait self-control on one hand and everyday self-regulatory success and affective well-being on the other hand was partially mediated by between-strategy variability. Our results do not only show the benefits of variable strategy use for individual's self-regulatory success but also the benefits of more strongly connecting the fields of emotion regulation and self-control research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Background Method Results Conclusions We explore the idea that inhibitory self‐control and prohedonic emotion regulation may be incompatible concerns.Specifically, we propose that because some forms of self‐control involve denying oneself hedonic pleasures, it may lead to negative affect. Because people may then prioritize emotion regulation over self‐control, negative affect may in turn lead to emotion regulation efforts, specifically the use of emotion regulation strategies, and an increased likelihood of self‐control failure.To explore the relationship between emotion regulation and self‐control in daily life, we conducted a secondary analysis of a 6‐week, 6‐signal‐per‐day ambulatory assessment data set (N = 125 participants with a total of 22,845 completed measurement occasions).Consistent with our predictions, we found that self‐control efforts of resisting a pleasurable desire led to significantly increased subsequent negative affect, which, in turn, led to significantly increased emotion regulation efforts and to significantly more likely self‐control failures.We found evidence for the notion that inhibitory self‐control and prohedonic emotion regulation are, on average, somewhat incompatible concerns. We discuss our findings in the context of other phenomena in which emotion regulation concerns may conflict with the pursuit of other goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]