Dynamics of self-control concern attempts by the self to manage one or another aspects of personality. Sometimes these attempts are conscious and purposeful, and other times they occur outside of awareness. A great deal of research is now occurring in the area of conscious self-control. Regarding more automatic self-control, one fascinating window into the area is the procedure of hypnosis. Another is the study of defense mechanisms.
Why Self-Control?
Freud pointed out that personality (i.e., the individual human being) is a system wedged between social demands and personal needs that often are of biological origin. This remains the consensual view today. Personality's location indicates that the system emerges from biology, is included in groups of people, and must navigate the social situation.
The fact that personality is located amidst neighboring systems such as biology, situations, and groups, which all influence it, means that the individual's mental system must exert sufficient self-control to remain coherent and whole.
Self-control, then, is a primary means by which the individual maintains his or her psychological identity, satisfies personal needs, and yet meets the expectations of society.
Examples of Self-Control
One type of self-control, for example, involves holding back saying or expressing what one wishes to.
One place on the web where you can see the wide variety of human secrets is the Postsecret web site. There, the web master, Frank Warren, has been inviting people to mail in postcards with personal secrets for several years. (He also has a book which collects many among the most interesting of these, called My Secret.)
Examples of secrets people write in with are these:
- I did not believe that my husband was my son's father until my son's teeth grew in crooked just like my husband's.
- I'm falling in love with you... but starting to hate myself.
- When I sign prescriptions I pretend that I'm famous and giving my autograph to fans -- Ima Star, MD.
- (With a photograph): This is what I look like beneath my wig.
- She thinks I'm a gentleman 'cause I wait til she reaches her door but I'm just watchin' her beautiful ass.
- My job is to watch the art building front door. So I lock one and watch people run into it for fun.
- I hate being the boss! I would give anything for my old job back.
For more (and for the artwork that people include), check the Postsecret site.
Self-Determination of Action
One key aspect to action in self-control involves the feeling of whether one is generating one's own behavior -- whether it is self-determined -- or whether one's acts are determined by outside forces (e.g., one's parents, or one's general situation).
Key researchers in the area of self-determination are Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, and their colleagues.
The Self-Determination Theory web page provides details on that theory.
Dynamic Systems and Self-Controlling Systems
Among the more challenging approaches to personality is to seriously treat it as a dynamic system and to try to analyze the fundamental principles by which it operates. Carver and Scheier's control theory does that. The first link below is to an introductory article that draws analogies from their work to acting. After that are links to their web sites and web sites of their colleagues.
Carver and Scheier's Control Theory -- 1: A Comparison with Method Acting -- Professors Carver and Scheier also are very interested in general systems theory and have developed their own theory, called control theory. This web article draws some nice parallels between their theory and a theory of acting by Constantin Stanislavski. I have chosen it because it provides a nice clear introduction to their work. See their original articles, however, for a more in-depth approach.
Carver and Scheier's Control Theory -- 2: Carver's Web Site -- Examine the research itself.
Dynamic Systems and Professor Vallacher's Site -- Professor Robin Vallacher and his colleague Andrzej Nowak have been developing a series of articles on applying general systems concepts to personality. Find out more on Dr. Vallacher's web site.
Unconscious Self-Control
Some personal control operates unconsciously. One type of such unconscious control -- maybe not the most important, but certainly very interesting -- is hypnosis.
Hypnosis and Hypnotic Procedures -- Not all self-control is conscious.
This link to hypnosis-research is supported in part by the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. It provides some general information on hypnosis, and, incidentally, refers people to a fantastic book: Kenneth Bowers' (1976) Hypnosis for the seriously curious. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
When Self-Control Fails
When we fail, we may try to hide our own failures from ourselves. Defense mechanisms are a form of self-control to limit the personal pain of our inadequacies.
Defense Mechanisms -- John Suler, Ph.D., maintains an excellent web page on teaching clinical psychology. As part of those pages he maintains descriptions of defense mechanisms, illustrated here.
Defense Mechanisms -- From Planet Psych.