ABSTRACT
A comparison of different theoretical and empirical approaches to selfregulation can illuminate much about the nature of current psychological science. The field of self-regulation (or, more broadly the field of human motivation) contains within it several classically distinct paradigms that are founded upon different metaphors and employ widely varied constructs, focal questions, and empirical strategies. These paradigms yield substantially different kinds of knowledge about human motivation and suggest different interventions for behavior change and social design.
