ABSTRACT
Self-control is an encompassing concept, “central to most forms of virtuous behavior” which “can be regarded fairly as the primary or master virtue” (Baumeister & Exline, 2000, p. 29). In a broad sense, it is “control of the self by the self” (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000, p. 247) with which an organism “alters or overrides its own responses or acts contrary to its preferences and impulses” (Baumeister & Exline, 2000, p. 30). It has also been conceptualized as the ability to delay gratification (Kreuger, Caspi, Moffitt, White, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1996). It is sometimes split into two components, “effortful control,” meaning control over emotional processes (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000), and “explicit processing” (MacDonald, 2008) or “executive control” (Henry, von Hippel, & Baynes, 2009), meaning control over cognitive processes. In any formulation, self-control lies at the heart of what it is to be human: our ability to exercise free will, to make decisions, and, if things break our way, to control our destinies.
