ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an array of self-control strategies that are effective in helping people maintain long-term goals, using examples from addiction and obesity. Self-control strategies are organized into external, cognitive, and internal types of commitments and automatic self-control. The purpose of a self-control strategy is to succeed in the pursuit of long-term goals either by increasing the motivational strength of the goal or by decreasing the motivational strength of the temptation. Emotion regulation is another important self-control strategy. Counteractive-Control strategy suggests that in the presence of temptation cues, individuals activate the overriding goals, which remind them of their long-term priorities and help them resist the temptations. Automatic Self-Control strategy can make self-control more automatic, and therefore less reliant on willpower strength. Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE) occurs when an individual views his relapse as a deviation from his commitment to absolute abstinence. The basic premise of Construal Level Theory (CLT) is that distance is linked to the level of mental construal.
