Control (psychology)

Control in the context of psychology generally refers to how a person regulates themselves or wishes to regulate their environment. There are several identified types of control -Perceived Control (a person's perception regarding their ability to achieve outcomes), cognitive control (the ability to select one's thoughts and actions), emotional control (the ability to regulate one's feelings or attitudes toward something), motivational control (one's ability to act on prescribed behaviors), control desire (the amount of control one seeks within a relationship), inhibitory control (the ability to inhibit thoughts or actions in favor of others), social control (selecting one's environment for personal benefit), ego control (the attempt to regulate impulses or attention processes), and effortful control (the ability to regulate how much effort one invests into a goal).

Perceived control

Perceived control in psychology is a “person’s belief that [they] are capable of obtaining desired outcomes, avoiding undesired outcomes, and achieving goals.” High perceived control is often associated with better health, relationships, and adjustment. Strategies for restoring perceived control are called Compensatory control strategies.[1] One's perception of perceived control is influenced by the past and future as well as what the desired outcome of an event may be. Perceived control is often associated with the term locus of control.[2] Perceived control can be broken down into two different categories including primary and secondary perceived control which deal with one's perception of control over the environment or their wishes within that environment.[3]

Control desire

Control desire applies to any subject, circumstance, or relationship that an individual may want to have some degree of control over.[4] In the context of a sales relationship, control desire refers to the amount of control a customer wants within the relationship.[5] Control desire is often associated with perceived control, and studies focused on individuals with lower control desire show a correlation with greater psychological problems.[4]

Cognitive control

Cognitive control in psychology describes “the ability to control one’s thoughts and actions.” It is also known as controlled processing, executive attention, and supervisory attention. Controlled behaviors, behaviors over which one has cognitive control, are guided by maintenance, updating, and representing task goals, and inhibiting information irrelevant to the task goal.[6] Cognitive control is often developed through reinforcement as well as learning from previous experiences. Increased cognitive control allows individuals to have increased flexibility in their ability to choose between conflicting stimuli.[7] Cognitive control is commonly tested using the Stroop color-word task as well as the Eriksen flanker task.[8]

There are also certain quirks of cognitive control such as ironic rebound, in which attempts to keep a particular thought out of consciousness result in that thought becoming increasingly prevalent. In social psychology experiments conducted by Daniel M. Wegner, Ralph Erber and R.E. Bowman, male and female subjects were instructed to complete some sentences related to sexism.[9] Some participants were given guidance to avoid being sexist, whereas some were not given such instructions.[9] Additionally, for some sentence completions, time pressure was either applied by asking for immediate responses or reduced by giving subjects ten seconds to respond.[9] Under low pressure conditions with guidance to avoid being sexist, the number of sexist sentence completions were lower when contrasted with the much higher amount of sexist sentence completions that resulted when subjects were under time pressure along with guidance to avoid being sexist.[9] Furthermore, these results were consistent among both male and female subjects.[9] This highlights the effect of ironic rebound, as when the individuals attempted to not be sexist under a significant time constraint, their resulting actions were counter to their attempts at cognitive control.[9]

Emotional control

Emotional control is a term from literature on self-regulatory psychology and refers to “the ability to self-manage or regulate attitudes and feelings that directly affect participant receptiveness to, and implementation of, training activities.”[10] Emotional control is often referred to as emotional regulation and is the process the brain undergoes to regulate and control emotional responses throughout the day.[11] Emotional control manages and balances the physiological as well as psychological response to an emotion.[12] The opposite of emotion regulation is emotional dysregulation which occurs when problems arise in the emotional control process that result in the inability to process emotions in a healthy manner.[11] Emotional control contains several emotional regulation strategies including distraction, cognitive reappraisal, and emotional action control.[12]

Motivational control

Motivational control in psychology “refers to the self-regulatory mechanism by which individuals are able to act on prescribed behaviors to implement training activities.” It can be explained by the analogy of a student who studies for an hour each morning for two months before a test, whether or not the student likes studying.[10]

Inhibitory control

Inhibitory control or “IC” in psychology refers to another type of self-regulation defined as “the ability to inhibit prepotent thoughts or actions flexibly, often in favor of a subdominant action, typically in goal-directed behavior”.[13] There are two types of IC: hot and cold. Hot IC involves activities or tasks related to emotion regulation, and cold IC involves abstract activities or tasks. A lack of inhibitory control can lead to difficulties in three main areas of life including motor, attentional, and behavioral control. Inhibitory control is also involved in the process of helping humans correct, react, and improve social behavior.[14]

A lack of inhibitory control can be connected with several mental disorders including Behavioral Inhibition, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Alcohol and drugs also influence one's inhibitory control.[14]

Social control

Social control is learning psychology and “refers to an individual’s skills in engaging the social environment in ways that help to support and reinforce his or her learning activities.”[10] Social control can be influenced by several factors including the control that society places on individual actions and behaviors[15] as well as the control an individual can exert over their own behaviors in public.[16] The definition of social control has changed over time to include the social control groups of people have in addition to individuals.[16]

Ego control

Ego control in psychology refers to the efforts of the individual to control "thoughts, emotions, impulses or appetites… task performances [and] attentional processes.”[17] Failure of ego control is seen as a central problem in individuals who suffer from substance abuse disorders.

Situational control

Situational control in psychology is part of leadership psychology that refers to “the degree to which the situation provides the leader with potential influence over the group’s behavior”.[18]

Effortful control

Effortful control in psychology refers to a type of self regulation. It is a broader construct than inhibitory control, and encompasses working memory and attention shifting.[19] Effortful control works by allowing individuals the ability to start or stop behaviors they may or may not want to do through attention management.[20] Effortful control is theorized to be involved in the process of problem solving as well as behavior regulation due to the top down processing involved.[21] Effortful control often interacts and is central in other forms of control such as emotional control and inhibitory control.[21]

See also

References
  1. Landau, Kay and Whitson. (2015). “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World”. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 141, No. 3, p. 695
  2. Ajzen, Icek (2002). "Perceived Behavioral Control, Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, and the Theory of Planned Behavior1". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 32 (4): 665–683. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00236.x. ISSN 1559-1816. S2CID 145391498.
  3. Pagnini, Francesco; Bercovitz, Katherine; Langer, Ellen (June 2016). "Perceived Control and Mindfulness: Implications for Clinical Practice" (PDF). Journal of Psychotherapy Integration. 26 (2): 91–102. doi:10.1037/int0000035.
  4. Amoura, Camille; Berjot, Sophie; Gillet, Nicolas; Altintas, Emin (June 2014). "Desire for control, perception of control: their impact on autonomous motivation and psychological adjustment". Motivation and Emotion. 38 (3): 323–335. doi:10.1007/s11031-013-9379-9. ISSN 0146-7239.
  5. Mullins, Bachrach, Rapp, Grewal, and Beitelspacher. (2015).Journal of Applied Psychology.Vol. 100, No. 4, 1073-1088
  6. Reimer, Radvansky, Lorsbach and Armendarez. (2015). “Event Structure and Cognitive Control”. Journal of Experimental Psychology.Vol. 41, No. 5, 1374-1387
  7. "Call for Papers: The Contribution of Learning and Memory Processes to Cognitive Control". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
  8. Mackie, Melissa-Ann; Van Dam, Nicholas T.; Fan, Jin (19 June 2013). "Cognitive Control and Attentional Functions". Brain and Cognition. 82 (3): 301–312. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2013.05.004. ISSN 0278-2626. PMC 3722267. PMID 23792472.
  9. Wegner, Daniel M. (1994). "Ironic processes of mental control". Psychological Review. 101 (1): 34–52. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.101.1.34. ISSN 1939-1471.
  10. Robbins, Oh, Le and Button. (2009). “Intervention Effects on College Performance and Retention as Mediated by Motivational, Emotional, and Social Control Factors: Integrated Meta-Analytic Path Analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology Vol. 94, No. 5, 1163-1184
  11. Cole, Pamela M.; Michel, Margaret K.; Teti, Laureen O'Donnell (1994). "The Development of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation: A Clinical Perspective". Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. 59 (2/3): 73. doi:10.2307/1166139. JSTOR 1166139.
  12. Koch, Saskia B. J.; Mars, Rogier B.; Toni, Ivan; Roelofs, Karin (2018-12-01). "Emotional control, reappraised". Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 95: 528–534. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.11.003. hdl:2066/197951. ISSN 0149-7634. PMID 30412701.
  13. Allan, Hume, Allan, Farrington and Lonigan. (2014). “Relations Between inhibitory Control and the Development of Academic Skills in Preschool and Kindergarten: A Meta-Analysis”. Developmental Psychology. Vol. 50, No. 10, 2368.
  14. "CogniFit". Inhibition or inhibitory control- Cognitive Ability. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  15. "Definition of SOCIAL CONTROL". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2019-11-14.
  16. Janowitz, Morris (1975-07-01). "Sociological Theory and Social Control". American Journal of Sociology. 81 (1): 82–108. doi:10.1086/226035. ISSN 0002-9602.
  17. Gottdiener, Murawski and Kucharski. (2008). “Using the Delay Discounting Task to test for failures in ego control in substance abusers.”Psychoanalytic PsychologyVol. 25, 3, 533-549
  18. Fiedler, F.E. (1971). “Validation and extension of the contingency model of leadership effectiveness: A review of empirical findings. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 129
  19. Allan, Hume, Allan, Farrington and Lonigan. (2014). “Relations Between inhibitory Control and the Development of Academic Skills in Preschool and Kindergarten: A Meta-Analysis”. Developmental Psychology. Vol. 50, No. 10, 2368-2379.
  20. "Temperament | Temperamental Effortful Control (Self-Regulation)". Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Retrieved 2019-09-23.
  21. Vohs, Kathleen D.; Baumeister, Roy F. (2016-07-01). Handbook of Self-Regulation, Third Edition: Research, Theory, and Applications. Guilford Publications. ISBN 9781462520459.
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