203
| Babies have been shown to imitate their parents Meltzoff, A. N., & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science, 198 (4312), 75–78.
|
203
| babies typically pass the mirror self-recognition test Amsterdam, B. (1972). Mirror self-image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology, 5 (4), 297–305.
|
205
| Mischel tested preschoolers between the ages of three and five Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (2), 329; Mischel, W., & Baker, N. (1975). Cognitive appraisals and transformations in delay behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31 (2), 254.
|
205
| Replacing the actual marshmallows with pictures Mischel, W., & Moore, B. (1973). Effects of attention to symbolically presented rewards on self-control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28 (2), 172.
|
205
| Mentally focusing on aspects of the marshmallows Mischel, W., & Baker, N. (1975). Cognitive appraisals and transformations in delay behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31 (2), 254.
|
205
| they were able to wait three times as long Moore, B., Mischel, W., & Zeiss, A. (1976). Comparative effects of the reward stimulus and its cognitive representation in voluntary delay. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34 (3), 419.
|
206
| Mischel retested his preschoolers Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26 (6), 978.
|
206
| preschoolers who could wait Lehrer, J. (2009). DON’T! The secret of self-control. New Yorker , May 18, pp. 26–32.
|
206
| GPA was better predicted Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 16 (12), 939–944.
|
206
| People with higher levels of self-control Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., … , & Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (7), 2693–2698; Meier, S., & Sprenger, C. D. (2012). Time discounting predicts creditworthiness. Psychological Science, 23 (1), 56–58; Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Bernzweig, J., Karbon, M., Poulin, R., & Hanish, L. (1993). The relations of emotionality and regulation to preschoolers’ social skills and sociometric status. Child Development, 64 (5), 1418–1438; Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26 (6), 978; Tangney, J. P., Baumeister, R. F., & Boone, A. L. (2008). High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality, 72 (2), 271–324; Côté, S., Gyurak, A., & Levenson, R. W. (2010). The ability to regulate emotion is associated with greater well-being, income, and socioeconomic status. Emotion, 10 (6), 923.
|
207
| Our impulses and emotional reactions Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ Error . New York: Putnam.
|
208
| self-control is like a muscle Vohs, K. D., & Heatherton, T. F. (2000). Self-regulatory failure: A resource-depletion approach. Psychological Science, 11 (3), 249–254; Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 (5), 1252.
|
208
| It is the only region in the prefrontal cortex Shaw, P., Lalonde, F., Lepage, C., Rabin, C., Eckstrand, K., Sharp, W., … , & Rapoport, J. (2009). Development of cortical asymmetry in typically developing children and its disruption in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 66 (8), 888; Holloway, R. L., & De La Costelareymondie, M. C. (1982). Brain endocast asymmetry in pongids and hominids: Some preliminary findings on the paleontology of cerebral dominance. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 58 (1), 101–110; Zilles, K. (2005). Evolution of the human brain and comparative cyto-and receptor architecture. In S. Dehaene, J. R. Duhamel, M. D. Hauser, & G. Rizzolatti (Eds.). From Monkey Brain to Human Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Bradford Books, pp. 41–56.
|
208
| it is appropriate to characterize the rVLPFC Cohen, J. R., Berkman, E. T., & Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Intentional and incidental self-control in ventrolateral PFC. In D. T. Stuss & R. T. Knight (Eds.). Principles of Frontal Lobe Function , 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 417–440; Cohen, J. R., & Lieberman, M. D. (2010). The common neural basis of exerting self-control in multiple domains. In Y. Trope, R. Hassin, & K. N. Ochsner (Eds.). Self-control. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–160.
|
209
| Countless studies have observed increased rVLPFC Aron, A. R., Robbins, T. W., & Poldrack, R. A. (2004). Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8 (4), 170–177.
|
209
| associated with deficits on the no-go task Aron, A. R., Fletcher, P. C., Bullmore, T., Sahakian, B. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2003). Stop-signal inhibition disrupted by damage to right inferior frontal gyrus in humans. Nature Neuroscience, 6 (2), 115–116.
|
209
| Decades after Mischel performed the initial marshmallow tests Casey, B. J., Somerville, L. H., Gotlib, I. H., Ayduk, O., Franklin, N. T., Askren, M. K., … , & Shoda, Y. (2011). Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (36), 14998–15003.
|
210
| Elliot Berkman and I tested the idea that rVLPFC Berkman, E. T., Falk, E. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2011). In the trenches of real-world self-control: Neural correlates of breaking the link between craving and smoking. Psychological Science, 22 , 498–506.
|
211
| fewer than half of the participants answer the question correctly Evans, J. S. B., Barston, J. L., & Pollard, P. (1983). On the conflict between logic and belief in syllogistic reasoning. Memory & Cognition, 11 (3), 295–306.
|
211
| Although we may not have as much control Relative to other kinds of self-control discussed, cognitive self-control is more often lateralized to the left hemisphere rather than to the right. It appears that when cognitive self-control is more wholistic (that is, when one is trying to inhibit an entire thought or belief), it tends to switch back to being right lateralized like the other kinds of self-control described.
|
211
| To study the neural bases of cognitive self-control Goel, V., & Dolan, R. J. (2003). Explaining modulation of reasoning by belief. Cognition, 87 (1), 11–22.
|
211
| Another study of the belief bias Tsujii, T., & Watanabe, S. (2010). Neural correlates of belief-bias reasoning under time pressure: A near-infrared spectroscopy study. NeuroImage, 50 (3), 1320–1326.
|
212
| a third study used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) Tsujii, T., Masuda, S., Akiyama, T., & Watanabe, S. (2010). The role of inferior frontal cortex in belief-bias reasoning: An rTMS study. Neuropsychologia, 48 (7), 2005; Tsujii, T., Sakatani, K., Masuda, S., Akiyama, T., & Watanabe, S. (2011). Evaluating the roles of the inferior frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule in deductive reasoning: An rTMS study. NeuroImage, 58 (2), 640–646.
|
212
| A similar finding has been demonstrated with framing effects Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211 (4481), 453–458.
|
212
| An fMRI study examined which brain regions De Martino, B., Kumaran, D., Seymour, B., & Dolan, R. J. (2006). Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain. Science, 313 (5787), 684–687.
|
213
| Typical fMRI studies of mentalizing Samson, D., Apperly, I. A., Kathirgamanathan, U., & Humphreys, G. W. (2005). Seeing it my way: A case of a selective deficit in inhibiting self-perspective. Brain, 128 (5), 1102–1111; van der Meer, L., Groenewold, N. A., Nolen, W. A., Pijnenborg, M., & Aleman, A. (2011). Inhibit yourself and understand the other: Neural basis of distinct processes underlying Theory of Mind. NeuroImage, 56 (4), 2364–2374.
|
214
| This is called the false consensus effect because we tend Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The “false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13 (3), 279–301.
|
216
| suppression isn’t used to suppress one’s experience of an emotion Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39 (3), 281–291.
|
217
| “Pain is inevitable Murakami, H. (2008). What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir . New York: Knopf, p. vii.
|
217
| our reality derives from the stories we tell ourselves Bower, J. E., Low, C. A., Moskowitz, J. T., Sepah, S., & Epel, E. (2007). Benefit finding and physical health: Positive psychological changes and enhanced allostasis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2 (1), 223–244.
|
217
| These threat reactions are orchestrated Pape, H. C. (2010). Petrified or aroused with fear: The central amygdala takes the lead. Neuron, 67 (4), 527–529.
|
218
| Suppression and reappraisal differ Butler, E. A., Egloff, B., Wilhelm, F. H., Smith, N. C., Erickson, E. A., & Gross, J. J. (2003). The social consequences of expressive suppression. Emotion, 3 (1), 48; Richards, J. M., & Gross, J. J. (2000). Emotion regulation and memory: The cognitive costs of keeping one’s cool. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79 (3), 410; Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39 (3), 281–291.
|
218
| Despite these differences between suppression and reappraisal Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9 (5), 242–249.
|
218
| For people who reappraise Goldin, P. R., McRae, K., Ramel, W., & Gross, J. J. (2008). The neural bases of emotion regulation: Reappraisal and suppression of negative emotion. Biological Psychiatry, 63 (6), 577.
|
219
| VLPFC activity is linked to our success Lee, T.-W., Dolan, R. J., & Critchley, H. D. (2008). Controlling emotional expression: Behavioral and neural correlates of nonimitative emotional responses. Cerebral Cortex, 18 (1), 104–113.
|
219
| In reappraisal, VLPFC activity has been linked Ochsner, K. N., Bunge, S. A., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14 (8), 1215–1229; Phan, K. L., Fitzgerald, D. A., Nathan, P. J., Moore, G. J., Uhde, T. W., & Tancer, M. E. (2005). Neural substrates for voluntary suppression of negative affect: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Biological Psychiatry, 57 , 210–219 ; Kalisch, R. (2009). The functional neuroanatomy of reappraisal: Time matters. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 33 (8), 1215–1226; Kalisch, R., Wiech, K., Critchley, H. D., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J. P., Oakley, D. A., … , & Dolan, R. J. (2005). Anxiety reduction through detachment: Subjective, physiological, and neural effects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 (6), 874–883.
|