Conceptual Foundations of Self-Control as Delay of Gratification

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Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Psychology - Work, Business, Organisational and Economic Psychology, grade: 1, 3, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg (Institut für Philosophie, Institut für Psychologie II), language: English, abstract: Did you have a New Year's resolution? What was it - loosing weight? Being more friendly to a colleague? Quitting to smoke? Maybe stopping to procrastinate the tasks at hand? And if that was the case: How successful have you been in prevailing your resolutions? Whatever it was, chances are good that by now you have had a relapse. But why is that so - that we are apparently not able to stick to (at least some of) our good intentions1? Obviously, this thesis will not be able to answer this question thoroughly. However, it does intend to provide a basis for a better understanding of this question. In folk psychology, the challenge of resisting a certain class of desires and the corresponding behaviors (like smoking) is often referred to with expressions like resisting temptations, exercising willpower, or self-discipline. And as it is often the case with terms or phrases that are widely used in everyday life, there is a variety of dierent concepts that underlie the same term, thus making it hard to eciently communicate about it. In example, while Peter might loud himself of his extraordinary self-control, for he considers it a heroic act of willpower to stay up an entire weekend to nish an essay that is due the next week, his friend might reproach him and argue that it has been his very lack of self-control that has brought him in the situation of having to pull "an all-nighter". Who is right then and why? "Nicht erst seit Walter Mischels bekannten Experimenten zum Belohnungsaufschub stehen die Konzepte Selbstbeherrschung, Selbstkontrolle und Willensstärke im Fokus sowohl der psychologischen als auch der philosophischen Forschung. Doch handelt e