Psychological Inquiry

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Self-Regulation Failure: An Overview

Roy F. Baumeister & Todd F. Heatherton

To cite this article: Roy F. Baumeister & Todd F. Heatherton (1996) Self-Regulation Failure: An
Overview, Psychological Inquiry, 7:1, 1-15, DOI: 10.1207/s15327965pli0701_1

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Psychological Inquiry Copyright 1996 by
1996, Vol. 7, NO. 1, 1-15 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

TARGET ARTICLE

Self-RegulationFailure: An Overview
Roy F. Baumeister
Department of Psychology
Case Western Reserve University
Todd F. Heatherton
Department of Psychology
Dartmouth College

The major patterns of s e l f - r e g l a t o failure are reviewed. Underregulation occurs

because of deficient standards, inadequate monitoring, or inadequate strength.
Misregulation occurs because of false assumptions or misdirected efforts, especially
an unwarranted emphasis on emotion. The evidence supports a strength (limited
resource) model of self-regulation and suggests that people often acquiesce in losing
control. Loss of control of attention, failure of transcendence, and various lapse-ac-
tivated causes all contribute to regulatory failure.

Modern American society suffers from a broad range their own behavior. Pioneers such as Mischel (1974)
of problems that have self-regulation failure as a com- and Bandura (1977) proposed and demonstrated that
mon core. Crime, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug human beings do seem to have the unique capacity to
addiction, venereal disease, educational underachieve- alter their own responses. Over the past 2 decades,
ment, gambling, and domestic violence are among the theory and research have advanced the understanding
social problems that revolve around the apparentinabil- of self-regulation considerably (Carver & Scheier,
ity of many individuals to discipline and control them- 1981; Kanfer & Karoly, 1972) and models of self-reg-
selves. Although economic, political, and sociological ulation have been applied in diverse areas (e.g., educa-
causes may be relevant to such issues, the proximal tion, drug treatment, emotional control, and task
importance of self-regulation failure to many cases is performance). Despite the substantial progress in
undeniable. Moreover, there are many additional prob- studying how self-regulation can function, however,
lems with self-regulation that cause considerable suf- relatively little effort has been devoted to direct exarn-
fering to individuals even if they do not menace society ination of failures at self-regulation(cf. Kirschenbaum,
at large (e.g., eating binges, spending sprees, procrasti- 1987).
nation, and inappropriate goal setting). The purpose of this article is to offer a theoretical
Researchers in the psychology of the self have re- treatment of self-regulation failure. We have recently
cently begun to recognize that one of the most elusive, reviewed the multiple literatures dealing with the many
important, and distinctively human traits is the capacity specific spheres of self-regulationfailure (Baumeister,
of human beings to alter their own responses and thus Heatherton, & Tice, 1994), and in this article we artic-
remove them from the direct effects of immediate, ulate some of our main conclusions. Because the em-
situational stimuli. An understandingof self-regulation pirical literature on these topics is extensive, we cite
failure would therefore have considerable value not evidence here only to illustrate key points. A com-
only for its applications to widespread social and per- prehensive review of current research knowledge is
sonal problems, but also to basic research and the beyond the scope of this article, and interested readers
construction of an adequate theoretical account of are referred to the book.
human selfhood. Self-regulation is a complex, multifaceted process,
Although conceptions of volition and self-control and so it can break down in several different ways.
have long been of philosophical, religious, and legal Therefore, it is not possible to identify a single cause or
interest, only recently have psychologists focused on causal sequence that will explain all instances of self-
the extent to which people influence, modify, or control regulation failure. Instead, there are several main pat-
 HAUMEISTER & HEATHERTON

terns, any one of which can produce self-regulation For instance, people who underestimate their abilitiec
failure independently. may fail to initiate attempts to achieve their goals
The most basic distinction is between underregula- The third ingredient of self-regulation is conta~necl
tion and misregulation (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1981). In the operate phase of the feedback loop. The idea i \
Underregulation entails a failure to exert self-control; that when the test phase reveals that the current state
often, the person does not bother or does not manage to falls short of the standards, some process is set rn
control the self. In contrast, misregulation involves the motion to change the current state. Past theories habr
exertion of control over oneself, but this control is done not devoted a great deal of attention to how theac.
in a misguided or counterproductive fashion, and so the processes actually function to bring about changc
desired result is not achieved. At present, there is more partly because they may have seemed complex ant1
research available on underregulation than on misregula- heterogeneous Still, it 1s clear that self-regulation tali
tion, and it also appears that underregulationis the more ure can occur despite clear standards and effect~vc
common sort of problem. After a brief discussion of the monitoring, simply because the person IS unable 14%
nature of self-regulation, we examine underregulation bring about the desired change
first and then proceed to misregulation. We have found it useful to conceptualize such ope:
ate changes in terms of one internal process overriding
another. Certain responses are set in motion, either bi,
Three Ingredients of Self-Regulation innate programming, learning, hablt, or motivatron-
and self-regulation involves overriding them. In othe~
Feedback-loop models of self-regulation, such as the words, a great many instances of self-regulation l n -
one elaborated by Carver and Scheier (198 1,1982;also volve a response that is initiated by a combination oi
Carver, 1979), indicate three main ingredients of self- latent motivations and activating stimuli; self-regula-
regulation, and these suggest three main possible path- tion is a matter of interrupting that response and pre
ways for self-regulation failure. The first ingredient is venting it from running to its normal, typical outconle
standards, which are ideals, goals, or other conceptions For example, a beer commercial (an activating stiniu
of possible states. Without clear and consistent stan- lus) may bring to the fore one's liking for alcohol t.,
dards, self-regulation will be hampered. Therefore, ei- latent motivation) and create an lnzpulse to consumr
ther a lack of standards or a dilemma of conflicting, alcohol; however, the person who is trying to reducc
incompatible standards can prevent effective self-reg- his or her drinking will seek to override the response
ulation. There is indeed evidence that such inner con- sequence and prevent it from leading to the consump
flicts can impair action and undercut efforts at tion of such a beverage.'
self-regulation (e.g., Emmons & King, 1988;Van Hook In many cases, impulses are automatic in the sense
& Higgins, 1988). Moreover, inappropriate standards of being beyond a person's volitional control. Thus, the
(i.e., those that are too high or too low) can also hamper term impulse control is misleading. Self-regulation rs LI

and thwart self-regulation (Heatherton & Ambady, controlled process that overrides the usual cons?
1993). quences of an impulse rather than preventing the ir*i
The second ingredient is monitoring. The "test" pulse from occurring. The problem is not that people
phase of feedback-loop models involves comparing the have impulses; rather, it is that they act on them
actual state of the self to the standards, and to do that
the person must monitor him- or herself. Keeping close Self-Regulatory Strength: A Limited
track of one's actions and states is often vital to suc- Resource
cessful self-regulation, and so when people cease to
monitor themselves they tend to lose control. Eating We turn now to the issue of what enables a person to
binges, for example, seem to occur when the person override a habitual or motivated response sequence
ceases to keep track of what he or she is eating (for a How does the pacifist turn the other cheek and how does
review, see Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991; Polivy, the dieter refrain from eating his or her fill? It is clear
1976). A particularly important factor is alcohol con-
sumption, which reduces self-attention and therefore -
makes people less able or less willing to monitor them- ' w e use the term impulse to refer to an inclination to perform a
selves (Hull, 1981). Alcohol consumption has been particular action on a particular occasion. Thus, impulses are highly
specific in contrast to motivations, which may be general or abstract
found to promote self-regulatory failure in many differ- Impulses arise when motivations encounter specific, activating slim-
ent spheres (Baumeister et al., 1994; Steele & uli in a particular situation. For example, hunger is a motivation.
Southwick, 1985). The failure to judge one's abilities whereas the wish to devour one of those fragrant, sizzling cheese-
accurately may also impede successful self-regulation burgers on the grill is an impulse.
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

that impulses and motivations vary according to ular, many patterns of self-regulationbreak down when
strength, and the weaker ones are those that are easier people are under stress, presumably because the stress
to control and stifle. If the impulses have strength, then depletes their self-regulatory capacities. People be-
whatever stifles them must presumably consist of some come more emotional and imtable, they are more likely
greater strength. Our own research (Baumeister et a]., to increase smoking, break diets or overeat, abuse alco-
1994) led us to concur with other scholars such as hol or other drugs, and so forth when under stress.
Mischel (in press) who have suggested that strength Glass, Singer, and Friedman (1969) found that coping
models are apt and useful for self-regulation theory. with stress seemed to have a "psychic cost" that took
Underregulation is thus often a matter of the inade- the form of lowered self-regulatory capacity, as mea-
quacy of one's strength to ovemde the unwanted sured by subsequent capacities to make oneself persist
thought, feeling, or impulse. More precisely, our over- in the face of frustration and to concentrate on a difficult
view of the self-regulation literature suggests that each task.
person's capacity for self-regulation appears to be a Likewise, if we assume that people are generally
limited resource, which is renewable over time and can fatigued late in the evening, then self-regulation
be increased or decreased as a result of gradual devel- should break down more at such times than at others.
opments or practice. One cannot regulate everything at Evidence about the timing of such self-regulatory
once. failures is consistent with the fatigue hypothesis (al-
Adopting a strength model of self-regulation has though some of these effects are confounded by the
several important corollaries for understanding self- fact that people are more likely to have consumed
regulation failure. There will be important individual alcohol late in the day and alcohol impairs monitor-
differences in self-regulatory strength, which should be ing, thereby also weakening self-regulation). Diets
consistent across a variety of spheres. There is some are most often broken late in the evening; sexual acts
evidence to support this view. Thus, individual differ- that one will later regret are likewise most common
ences in the capacity to delay gratification predict a then; people smoke and drink most heavily late in the
variety of interpersonal traits and behaviors that reflect day; most violent and impulsive crimes are commit-
self-control (Funder, Block, & Block, 1983) and can ted between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m.
even predict academic performance over a decade later These first two implications of the strength model
(Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel, & furnish a basis for predicting the intercorrelations
Peake, 1990).Also, the same individuals show self-reg- among indications of self-control in multiple spheres.
ulatory deficits across a broad spectrum of both legal If there are individual differences in self-regulatory
and illegal behavior. A typical criminal, for example, strength, then over the long run there will be positive
will not specialize in one particular kind of illegal correlations because strong people will tend to have
activity, but rather will commit a variety of crimes, and relatively high levels of self-control in all spheres. On
he or she will also be prone to smoke cigarettes, spend the other hand, in the short run the correlations will be
impulsively (thereby dissipating any financial gains negative because devoting one's self-regulatory efforts
from crime), become involved in unwanted pregnan- to one sphere will take away what is available for
cies, fail at marriage, abuse alcohol and drugs, have controlling oneself in other spheres. Researchers inter-
high absenteeism at work or school, and engage in other ested in overlaps between self-regulatoryeffectiveness
behaviors indicative of poor self-regulation (Gottfred- in different spheres may need to be alert to these oppos-
son & Hirschi, 1990). ing empirical tendencies.
The second implication of a strength model is that a The third implication is just as it is possible to
person can become exhausted from many simultaneous increase strength by regular exercise, so self-regulation
demands and so will sometimes fail at self-controleven should become easier the more one does it. This has
regarding things at which he or she would otherwise been asserted by James (189011950) and many other
succeed. As a limited resource, self-regulatory strength observers of human behavior but we do not know of
can be temporarily depleted. At any given time, a given strong empirical tests of the hypothesis. In this connec-
person will only be able to regulate so much of his or tion, it is of considerable relevance that new programs
her behavior, and so when strength is depleted by for prisoners (e.g., "boot camps") involve military-style
demands in one sphere, self-regulatory breakdowns training, in which an attempt is made to instill self-dis-
may occur in others. In particular, fatigue or overexer- cipline by means of enforcing external discipline. Al-
tion will deplete the person's strength and hence under- though the effectiveness of these programs has yet to
mine some patterns of self-control. be decided, we predict that their success at rehabilitat-
The evidence regarding such short-term depletions ing prisoners will be in proportion to their success at
is not extensive but it is broad and consistent. In partic- strengthening self-regulatory capacities.
 BAlJMEISTER & HEATHERTON

One implication of the notion of increasing strength that managing attention was the most common and
is that people may become better at practicing self-de- often the most effective form of self-regulation and that
nial or impulse control over time. Ironically, this could attentional problems presaged a great many varieties o i
mean that people who repeatedly quit smoking or go on self-regulationfailure. With controlling thoughts, emo-
diets may gradually become more effective and suc- tions and moods, task-performance processes, and ap-
cessful. Schachter (1982) contended that people im- petites and impulses, the effective management of
prove at quitting smoking with practice. Prochaska and attention was a powerful and decisive step, and selt-
DiClemente (1984, 1986) argued that people become regulatory failure ensued when attention could not be
better at quitting a variety of addictions when they do managed (Baumeister et al., 1994; see also Kirschen
it multiple times. Of course, the fact that they are baum, 1987; Wegner, 1994).
quitting again means that the prior effort to quit was not For our purposes, the key point is that the importance
a permanent success but it may be the case that one of attention is at least partly attributable to the inertla
learns to quit through successive approximations. principle. Effective management of attention can pre-
There could be several reasons for progressive im- vent the unwanted response sequence from starting.
provement at impulse control but one of them clearly which makes it relatively easy to prevent the unaccept
is the possibility of increasing strength. able outcome. In contrast, if attention escapes control
~t can set the unwanted responses in motion. and once
they acqulre inertia they are more difficult to control
Inertia and Attention In simple terms, it is easier to avoid temptation than tn
overcome ~t
A fair amount of evidence suggests that psycholog-
ical responses are marked by something akin to inertia.
which makes them difficult to interrupt. The term iner- Transcendence
tia is borrowed from physics, in which it referred to the
(now discredited) theory that bodies in motion acquired One particularly important form of attention controi
a force that sustained them in motion. is transcendence. Transcendenceis amatter of focusing
We propose that psychological processes do acquire awareness beyond the immediate stimuli (i.e., trans-
a kind of inertia (unlike physical processes). Indeed, the cending the immediate situation). This does not neces-
longer a response has gone on the more inertia it seems sarily mean ignoring the immediate present so much as
to have and hence the more difficult it is to override. seeing it in the context of more distal concerns (e.g ,
This theoretical principle is not new (indeed, the values, goals, and motivations). Phenomenologists
Zeigarnik effect involved the principle that interrupting have emphasized transcendence as a particularly irn-
an activity becomes more strenuous as it nears its portant capability of human consciousness.
completion) but its importance for understanding self- Dieting offers a clear example of transcendence.
regulation has been neglected. Human beings may be the only species on the planet i n
Effective self-regulation often seems to involve in- which hungry individuals will voluntarily refuse to
tervening as early as possible. For example, if the goal consume readily available, appealing food. Effective
of self-regulation is the preservation of chastity, it is dieting does, however, require the person to transcend
often more effective to interrupt sexual activities at the the effects of the immediate stimuli. By contemplating
first kiss rather than after an hour's worth of escalating long-range goals and concerns, such as how one will
physical contact. The effectiveness of early interven- look in a bathing suit next summer, people are available
tion may well reflect the operation of inertia: To mini- to frame the attractive food as a problematic or danger-
mize inertia, self-regulatory efforts may be most ous obstacle rather than as an appealing morsel.
profitably focused on the very first stages of all re- Therefore, one proximal cause of self-regulat~on
sponse sequences. failure is the failure of transcendence. When attention
Most models of the cognitive control of behavior slips off of long-range goals and high ideals and instead
begin with attention because noticing something is by becomes immersed in the immediate situation, self-reg-
definition the first stage in information processing. As ulation is in jeopardy. Whatever functions to direct
a result, one would expect that managing attention attention to the here and now will tend to weaken the
would be important in many or all spheres of self-reg- capacity for self-regulation. This may include both
ulation, and, as a corollary, the loss of attentional con- situational and dispositional factors. Situational factor:,
trol will be a common first harbinger of self-regulatory include those that promote deindividuation. There are
failure. Our review of multiple, empirical literatures also individual differences in the extent to which people
confirmed these hypotheses. Over and over. we found are influenced by environmental cues. Schachter'~
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

(1971) influential externality theory of obesity argued murderers can hardly recall even the next day what
that some individuals (i.e., the overweight) were espe- made them so violent. However, in the heat of the
cially prone to be influenced by external cues about moment (i.e., the short-term attentional focus caused by
eating. high emotion), people fail to consider long-range im-
The capacity to delay gratification is one of the plications and act in response to short-term concerns,
important roots of self-regulation theory. A successful which may include winning the dispute at all costs and
delay of gratification requires the person to forego by violent means.
immediately available rewards in favor of larger but A second mechanism by which emotional distress
remoter ones, and keeping oneself from thinking about may thwart transcendence and impair self-regulation
the immediate rewards is often a vital part of that occurs when the source of emotional distress is not
success (Mischel, 1974;Rodriguez, Mischel, & Shoda, present in the immediate situation but is highly avail-
1989). Karniol and Miller (1983) showed that self-reg- able in memory (e.g., just after one has received a
ulatory failure (in this case, the failure to choose the major rejection or failure experience). Under such
delayed gratification) is often preceded by shifts in circumstances, people will seek to distract them-
attention to the immediate reward. This shift in atten- selves to prevent themselves from thinking about the
tion to the immediate situation is a form of transcen- upsetting event; immersion in powerful, short-term
dence failure. stimuli may be an effective means. Unfortunately,
Transcendence is often a vital aspect of emotion some of the most compelling short-term stimuli are
regulation. People overcome anger, frustration, or dis- precisely the things that the person is otherwise try-
appointment by looking beyond the immediate situa- ing to control (e.g., alcohol, sweet foods, or drugs).
tion. They imagine how things could have been worse, A great deal of binge behavior, whether it be shop-
conjure up possible positive outcomes that may derive ping, gambling, eating, drinking, or having sex,
from the current setback, or speculate about possibly seems to result when people are seeking to keep their
beneficial motives that the other (offending) person attention focused on immediate, concrete stimuli as
may have had. Emotion is typically linked to a partic- a means of keeping it away from some threatening or
ular value judgment about a particular event or situa- upsetting thoughts.
tion; by transcending the situation, one can escape from To be sure, emotion is not invariably bad for self-reg-
the emotion that is linked to that value judgment. ulation. Some emotions, such as guilt, may even help
Indeed, it is plausible that the contribution of emo- self-control (e.g., Baumeister, 1995; Baumeister,
tional distress to self-regulation failure is often medi- Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1995).Still, these instances are
ated by effects on transcendence. The interrelations consistent with the general arguments about transcen-
among emotion, attention, and self-regulation are not dence because they refer to cases in which the emotion
well understood and so comments must be speculative, facilitates self-regulation by actually promoting tran-
but we propose the following: Emotion increases the scendence. A dose of anticipatory guilt may help the
salience of whatever produces the emotion and so at- person realize that what he or she is about to do may
tention will tend to focus on whatever has prompted the cause damage to important, desired relationships or
emotion. Most commonly, something in the immediate have other unwanted consequences, and so the person
situation is the cause and so emotion tends to have the may interrupt the pursuit of some short-term goal or
effect of concentrating attention in the here and now- reward. By calling attention to distal outcomes and
thereby thwarting transcendence and making self-reg- meaningful implications, guilt helps the individual
ulation more difficult. Violent behavior provides an transcend the immediate situation and its temptations,
important illustration of such effects of emotion. Vio- thereby aiding self-control.
lence typically results because the person becomes Transcendence is even relevant to some aspects of
angry at some pressing stimulus-a rival who insults task performance, which is an important sphere for
one, a child who cries excessively, a spouse who frus- self-regulation. In particular, persistence at difficult,
trates one's wishes (e.g., Berkowitz, 1989). The anger boring, and unpleasant tasks is a challenge that is en-
keeps attention confined to the immediate, provoking demic to many forms of work, and such persistence
situation and so efforts to restrain one's violent im- often requires the person to transcend the immediate
pulses are made more difficult. In their discussion of situation, which on its own merits would seemingly
the role of self-control failure in causing crime, favor quitting. Sansone, Weir, Harpster, and Morgan
Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) pointed out that long- (1992) showed that persistence on boring tasks is facil-
range considerations would often militate against vio- itated by mentally transforming them into more inter-
lence. Thus, most murders bring far more harm than esting processes. Indeed, studies of blue-collar
benefit to the perpetrators themselves, and indeed many manufacturing workers have shown that such workers
 BAUMEISTER & HEATHERTON

tend to restructure their tedious, repetitious tasks into This question has important implications. One set
elaborate games; when they are successful, they be- concerns basic theoretical questions of conscious con-
come totally engrossed in these games to the extent that trol and intrapsychic conflict. Another concerns legal
they continue to talk about them even during breaks and issues Are violent crimes the product of irresistible
lunch hours (Burawoy, 1979).By extension, when peo- impulses or deliberate choices? Political issues such as
ple are unable to effect such transcendent reconcep- whether addicts, alcoholics, spouse abusers. and others
tions of these tasks, they are more likely to quit. should be treated as needy victims or as criminal de-
which can be a severely problematic form of self-reg- generates also revolve around this question. Given the
ulation failure. sweep of these implications, it is not surprising that
We noted earlier that alcohol was implicated as one there are ample arguments on both sides in both the
cause of a great many varieties of self-regulation fail- professional journals and in the popular and mass
ure. Although we suggested that alcohol's impairment media. We think that an additional reason for the exis-
of self-monitoring may be one mechanism by which tence of both sides of the argument is that there is in
alcohol has these effects, it is plausible that another one fact a large, gray area. In our view, self-regulation
is through the impairment of transcendence. Steele and failure is rarely a matter of deliberate, premeditated
Josephs (1990) coined the term alcohol myopia to choice, but then again it is not often a matter of irresist
describe the way alcohol limits attention and restrains ible impulses either
it to a few proximal stimuli. Their argument can readily During the period we spent reading about and study
be extended to say that alcohol impairs the sort of lng self-regulation, we grew increasingly skeptical of
long-range, abstract, meaningful, or mentally flexible the irresistible impulse notion. By definition, such im-
thinking involved in transcendence (and, in fact, alco- pulses cannot be resisted and so they refer to things
hol does seem to increase the responsivity to immediate people would do even if someone were holding a gun
stimuli ranging from violent to sexual to appetitive). to their heads and threatening to kill them if they did
Thus, self-control often involves seeing the immedi- the forbidden acts. Despite the popularity of the notion
ate situation in terms of long-range concerns, values, of irresistible impulses in courtroom settings, it 1s
and goals (see also Carver & Scheier, 1981; Rachlin, readily apparent that people could and would refrain
1995;Vallacher & Wegner, 1985). The ability to main- from most behaviors if their lives depended on it. The
tain attention and focus on these long-term issues is one vast majority of impulses are resistible.
ingredient of self-regulatory strength. In general, fac- Thus, the popular image of the passive victim over
tors that bind attention to the immediate situation and come by powerful, irresistible impulses cannot be ac-
pressing stimuli will tend to contribute to self-regula- cepted except in a few rare and extreme cases (e.g., the
tion failure. fact that people cannot indefinitely postpone certain
biological functions such as falling asleep, urinating, or
breathing-all things that people will eventually do
Acquiescence and Overriding even despite a gun to the head). In reviewing the
empirical literature on self-regulation failure, we found
One of the most important yet controversial aspects over and over that there was significant evidence oi
of self-regulation failure is the question of the extent to deliberate, volitional participation by the individual in
which people acquiesce in it. The question can be the forbidden activity. These findings and patterns do
appreciated by considering two contrary images of not rule out the possibility that there are points at which
self-regulation failure. Both of them depict a person people feel helpless and passive and are overcome h j
who feels an impulse to act in a way that runs contrary strong impulses. They do, however, suggestthat the full
to his or her normal standards of proper, desirable episode of self-regulation failure usually involves nt
behavior. Self-regulation failure means acting out that least some elements of active acquiescence.
impulse and thus violating the person's standards. In Let us consider some examples in which there i*
one image, the well-intentioned person is overwhelmed evidence of acquiescence in self-regulation failure
by an irresistible impulse that no normal person could (Baumeister et al., 1994).Cigarette smoking is a g o d
restrain. In the other, the person simply decides to give example because in the contemporary United States i t
in to the impulse rather than go through the exertion and 1s typically inconvenient, if not outright difficult, tcb
frustration that would accompany self-restraint. Thus, smoke. The would-be smoker must obtain cigarettes
is self-regulation failure a matter of lazy self-indul- and then find a time and place where smoking is still
gence (i.e., heedlessly giving in to temptation) or is it a allowed. The person must then go through the motion!,
matter of being overcome by powerful, unstoppable of lighting up and inhaling. Smoking is well recognized
forces? ;IS a powerful addiction and as a source of strong
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

cravings and unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, all of changed the planned route to pass through Reno, Ne-
which may be beyond the smoker's control; however, vada, which he claimed would be more scenic. (Seattle
smoking is not a matter of simply going limp, becoming is north of San Francisco; Reno is east of it.) In Reno,
passive, and letting it happen. he needed change for a parking meter and so entered
Consuming alcohol (or taking other drugs) is subject the nearest building, whichjust happened to be acasino.
to a similar analysis. Despite the undeniable addictive- While in the casino, he decided to place a single bet to
ness of alcohol, and despite popular images that many test his luck. The ensuing 3-day gambling binge was
people cannot control their drinking, it is clear that most perhaps not deliberately planned in advance but the
people who drink alcohol are actively acquiescing in decisions that brought him there seem disingenuous. In
the process. Ordering or pouring a drink and raising a similar fashion, people do pick fights in which they lose
glass to one's lips are deliberate, volitional acts. Binge control, manufacture reasons for consuming alcohol,
eaters likewise often describe their eating as out of place themselves in tempting situations, and engage in
control, yet in many cases the person must acquiesce to other patterns that seem as if they were conspiring to
the extent of ordering or preparing food, putting it into thwart their own self-regulatory programs.
one's mouth, and chewing and swallowing it. Apart from such extreme cases, it would usually be
Procrastination is another common self-regulation inappropriate to say that the person planned and engi-
problem and procrastinators may often feel like pas- neered the entire scenario in advance; in fact, the person
sive, helpless victims, especially during the eventual may often be quite chagrined by the eventual outcome.
crisis when the deadline looms and the remaining time To simply say that the self-regulation failures reflect
is inadequate for the task. Procrastination, however, deliberate free choice would therefore be somewhat
often involves actively doing other things instead of the misleading. On the other hand, the stereotype of the
deferred activity. Back when there was ample time to helpless,passive victim overwhelmed against his or her
begin workon the task, the person was hardly overcome will by uncontrollable impulses is not accurate either.
by an irresistible impulse to go out for a beer or watch The person did participate, more or less freely and
television instead. Rather, the person actively partici- deliberately, in the actions that constituted the self-reg-
pated in these other activities. ulation failure.
If procrastination involves a failure to get started, In order to resolve the issue of acquiescence, it is first
performance is also affected by whether people persist necessary to appreciate that there are often costs and
or quit, and so the matter of deciding when to quit can disadvantagesto self-control.Foregoing an immediate,
be an important aspect of the self-regulation of perfor- desired pleasure is only one of them. Frustration, with-
mance. Although there are occasionally cases in which drawal, and feelings of deprivation may be acute.
sheer exhaustion forces the person to stop (e.g., when Moreover, if our hypothesis of self-regulatory strength
marathon runners collapse and are carried away on is correct, then maintaining self-control and resisting
stretchers), usually the decision to quit is much more temptation can be a tiring and draining experience that
fluid and negotiable and the person could have gone on can even consume resources that may be needed for
a little longer. Quitting during task performanceusually other acts of self-control.
occurs well before the point of full exhaustion. The Resisting temptation is thus, in many cases, an ongo-
person somehow selects a point at which to quit and ing (or perennial) and unpleasant exertion. Its difficulty
then goes and does something else. is likely to fluctuate as a function of the strength and
Delay of gratification is one of the prototypes of salience of the competing impulse and of the self-reg-
impulse control; yet, in many studies of delay of grati- ulatory capacity. An irresistible impulse is hardly nec-
fication, the participant must make some active re- essary for self-regulation failure; rather, a moment
sponse to obtain the immediate reward. Making that during which the impulse is especially strong or attrac-
response is often a matter of deliberate action. Outside tive, while the self-regulatory strength is temporarily
the laboratory, failures to delay gratification may often depleted, may be sufficient.At some point, perhaps, the
involve even more extensive and obvious forms of costs of exerting control may simply seem too high,
active acquiescence (e.g., when the person drops out of whereas the anticipated benefits may seem too remote
college or empties a savings account). or uncertain or simply too small and so the person
There are of course instances in which the person's gives in.
acquiescence is even more extreme. People do some- We are thus portraying the abrogation of self-control
times seem to arrange to lose control. Marlatt (1985) as a deliberate choice, but it is one that is made in a very
described the case of a compulsive gambler who was narrow sphere and is strongly influenced by internal
planning a trip from San Francisco to Seattle and at the and external factors, to which we shall return in a
last minute (and following an argument with his wife) moment. Apparently, however, people often regard the
 BAUMEISTER & HEATHERTON

decision as a single event that is not to be reconsidered, accurate because people tend to treat the decision to
at least not until much later. Once the person decides to abandon control and indulge themselves as irrevocable
start eating, drinking, smoking, having sex, venting The evidence that people acquiesce in self-regula-
emotion, spending money, or assaulting someone, the tion failure, as well as the analysis of self-control as an
person will often go ahead and participate actively in ongoing inner debate that is shaped by perceived costs
the process. and benefits, has one more important implication: Cul-
There is thus an important asymmetry in the way tural and situational factors can exert considerable sub-
many people confront internal conflicts surrounding tle influence on self-regulation. To put it another way,
self-regulation.Maintaining self-control is treated as an the point at which people lose (or abandon) self-control
ongoing process of negotiation and the fact that one is one that can be moved around within a wide gray
resisted temptation a few minutes ago does not neces- area, and so many factors can influence self-control by
sarily free one from facing a similar decision again. moving that point.
However, abandoning self-control is treated as if it The self-regulationof violent, aggressive behavior is
were a single decision that is not subject to further a good example. Many violent acts are experienced and
reconsideration. described by perpetrators as episodes of losing control
Why do people fail to reconsider a decision to go Consistent with this, it is clear that most people are
ahead and indulge themselves, abandoning restraint? usually able to prevent anger from resulting in physical
Several reasons can be suggested. The period of inde- violence. The very high contribution of alcohol to in-
cision is likely to have been one of anxiety and uncer- tensifying violent responses to provocations is partly
tainty and, in contrast, the decision to go ahead is likely due to the fact that it undermines people's capacity tct
to be marked by relief (and often pleasure). To return regulate their behavior, so they act out violent impulses
voluntarily from a state of relief and pleasure to one of more frequently and extremely (Bushman & Cooper.
anxiety and uncertainty would certainly be an unap- 1990; Steele & Southwick, 1985).
pealing transition. Moreover, the unpleasantness of the Despite the appearance that violent behavior in-
state of denial and inner debate would be enhanced by volves loss of control, there is evidence of acquies-
guilt or other forms of anxiety resulting from the initial cence: People could control their behavior if they
indulgence. wanted to do so. Most people do stop short of lethal
As an example, one may consider a hypothetical case violence even when they are extremely angry (Tavris.
of a dieter tempted to enjoy an appealing dessert. The 1989).Among the Malays, the pattern of running amok
phase of confronting and resisting temptation is proba- institutionalized a general belief that provocations pro
bly an unpleasant one, marked by the internal effort of duced anger that led to uncontrollable aggression; but
self-denial and salient thoughts of the foregone plea- when the British took over and instituted severe penal-
sure, as well as an ongoing inner debate. Finally the ties for running amok, the practice diminished substan-
person decides to go ahead and have the dessert after tially, indicating that the young men could control it
all, possibly under the influence of some available after all (Cam & Tan, 1976). Berkowitz's (1978) study
excuse (e.g., so as not to offend the hostess). This of men in prison for violent assault in Great Britain
decision most likely brings pleasure and relief, and as contained the same mixed message. These men did
the person enjoys the first few bites, the idea of recon- apparently lose control (often under the influence ut
sidering--of returning to self-denial or even of just alcohol) and beat someone else up to their own disad-
renewing the inner debate about whether one ought to vantage (hence their imprisonment), but they had man-
be eating this-would be most unappealing. To resume aged to restrain themselves from going even farther. In
self-denial while halfway through the dessert would be one memorable anecdote, one of Berkowitz's partici
unpleasant in several respects: It would mean abandon- pants described a violent attack on his wife's love1
ing a very salient pleasure in order to return to the state during which he was totally enraged and seemingly out
of deprivation, it would require a strenuous act of of control. At one point in the attack, he took hold of a
self-regulation, and even if one succeeded in putting bottle by the neck and broke it off to use as a weapon--
down the spoon one would already have earned some but then he reconsidered that if he used that weapon he
remorse (e.g., guilt or shame) because of the portion would most likely have killed the other man, which
one already ate. would have had serious consequences for him As d
Self-regulation failure can thus occur whenever the result, he put down the broken bottle and resumed the
person experiences even a very brief period in which attack with his fists, beating the other man senseless but
the costs seem to outweigh the benefits. The popular not killing him.
image in which a moment of weakness can undermine There is thus an undercurrent of control in the loss
months or years of virtuous self-denial is somewhat of control of violent behavior. At some point, people
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

allow themselves to lose control. The determination of Misregulation

that point is subject to a great many subtle influences.
Theories about aggression once explored the notion We turn now to examine a very different type of
of a "subculture of violence." According to that theory, self-regulation failure, namely misregulation. Al-
certain subcultures placed a positive value on aggres- though underregulation may provide the most familiar
sive behavior and so people sought to gain esteem and and vivid instances of self-regulatory failure, not all
prestige by acting aggressively. This view was largely instancesfit in that category. In underregulation,people
discredited by accumulating evidence that violent peo- end up being unable or unwilling to exert the requisite
ple did not apparently seek to win approval or esteem control over themselves. In misregulation, however,
by violent acts (e.g., Berkowitz, 1978) and that mem- the cause of failure lies in the use to which the efforts
bers of the supposedly violent subculturesdid not report are directed. The person may even be quite successful
that they placed positive values on violent acts (see at exerting control over him- or herself but the end
Tedeschi & Felson, 1994). result is failure because the efforts are misguided or are
We think, however, that the notion of a subculture of wasted in other ways.
violence may deserve to be reconsidered in another Our review of the empirical literature yielded three
form: Subcultures (or indeed cultures) can influencethe main causes of misregulation: (a) misunderstood
point at which people believe it is appropriate to lose contingencies, (b) quixotic efforts to control the un-
control over aggressive impulses. Such collective be- controllable, and (c) giving too much priority to
liefs can exert considerable influence over the point at affect regulation. Let us examine each of these in
which people believe it is appropriate, reasonable, or turn.
even desirable to abandon self-control. Thus, many The first cause involves false beliefs about the self
assaults and homicides occur in direct response to and the world (particularly about the contingencies
verbal insults, but most insults do not lead to physical between them). Well-intentioned and well-executed
violence. It takes cultural norms to prescribe which efforts at self-regulation may end in futility because
insults, in which settings, will cause the person to they were based on false assumptionsabout what would
retaliate with physical aggression. Studies and inter- yield desirable results. Thus, under the influence of
views with teen gang members, for example, often inflated egotism and emotional distress, people may set
report that the young men and women say that violent unrealistically high goals that will increase the likeli-
retaliation is appropriate and even necessary in re- hood or costliness of failure (Baumeister, Heatherton,
sponse to certain insults (e.g., Anderson, 1994; Bing, & Tice, 1993;Ward & Eisler, 1987;Wright & Mischel,
1991; Currie, 1991; Jankowski, 1991). Likewise, the 1982).As Heatherton and Ambady (1993) argued, peo-
American South has higher homicide rates than other ple who are prone to overly optimistic self-views may
parts of the country but only for homicides related to be especially vulnerable to this form of self-regulation
arguments, which suggests that Southern culture sup- failure.
ports the view that certain provocations require one to Unwarranted optimism may also cause excessive
lose control of violent, retaliatory impulses (Nisbett, persistence in futile endeavors and although the
1993). chances of success were minimal all along, the persis-
Indeed, moving the point at which one loses con- tence increases the costs (e.g., time, effort, and money)
trol may be a major way that a culture can influence that accompany the failure (Rubin & Brockner, 1975;
self-regulation. From our perspective, various forces Staw, 1976). Increased frustration and other emotional
in modern American culture have exerted a broad costs may result from such failures due to excessive
influence to shift this point in ways that make people persistence; indeed, in unrequited love, people often
more likely to abandon self-control. The pervasive- persist past the point of rational or optimal hope and the
ness of self-regulation problems in modern America results of such persistence include considerabledistress
may be less a result of character flaws or deficiencies and inconvenience for both the aspiring lover and the
than a result of a social climate that encourages target (Baumeister, Wotman, & Stillwell, 1993). One
people to regard many situations as ones in which an study showed that futile persistence is often mediated
average, reasonable person would supposedly lose by false expectations; when people were educated
control. The notion of irresistible impulses may be about common patterns of excessive, fruitless persis-
weak and dubious as a scientific hypothesis but as a tence, they were less likely to make the same mistake
social doctrine (and as a legal defense strategy) it themselves (Nathanson et al., 1982). Another showed
may be powerful and influential. Once it becomes that if people are encouraged to make careful calcula-
widely accepted, it is likely to operate as a self-ful- tions about the probabilities, contingencies, and likely
filling prophecy. payoffs, they are less likely to fall into the trap of
 HAUMEISTEK & HEATHERTON

excessive persistence (Conlon & Wolf, 1980), which out of their minds. Research has shown that suchefforts
also indicates that false assumptions and misguided at thought suppression are at best only partly successful
expectations play a crucial role in this form of and they create strong vulnerabilities to resurgences of
misregulation. the unwanted thought (Wegner, Schneider, Carter, &
False assumptions contribute to another pattern of White, 1987); indeed, efforts to suppress undesired
misregulation in the task-performance realm involving thoughts may ironically create a "synthetic obsession"
speed-accuracy tradeoffs. On many tasks, speed is in- with those thoughts (Wegner, 1992, 1994).
creased at the expense of accuracy and vice versa, but Performance can be impaired by this form of
the relation is far from linear and there are many cases misregulation too and indeed one of the most familiar
In which reducing speed will fail to yield greater accu- and frustrating kinds of performance failure-chok-
racy. Moreover, people may assume falsely that they ing under pressure-is a classic case of it. Choking,
can increase speed without substantial losses of accu- which is defined as performing below the level of
racy. Heckhausen and Strang (1988) showed that ath- one's ability despite situational incentives and sub-
letes attempting to achieve a record performance on an jective wishes and efforts to do one's best, arises
experimental task tended to increase speed dramati- because the person consciously overrides well
cally but the loss of accuracy outweighed the gains learned patterns of skilled response in the hope of
brought by the increased speed. The role of false as- maximizing performance-but then finds that the
sumptions was evident: The athletes in that study be- deliberate, controlled processes cannot perform as
lieved that they could maintain high accuracy at higher efficiently and effectively as the overlearned, auto-
speeds. matic ones (Baumeister, 1984). In a typical case, the
Misregulation can also result from false assumptions person has achieved a level of overlearning (i.e..
about emotions. Many people believe that it is helpful skill) so that performance can flow with a minimum
to vent their anger or other forms of emotional distress of conscious direction. However, on a particularly
but they find that such acts often make them more rather important occasion, the pressure and desire to dtr
than less upset (e.g., Tavris, 1989). Affect misregula- well cause the person to want to pay special attention
tion is marked by many patterns of misregulation in and therefore to oversee the performance process
which people incorrectly assume that what works once consciously. This conscious oversight overrides the
or with one emotion will work with others too. Thus, automatic quality of skilled performance; sadly, con-
consuming alcohol often makes people feel good and trolled processes cannot match the automatic skills
so they may drink as a way of self-medicating for their for either speed or accuracy. For example, the typist
own depression; however, they often find that intoxica- or pianist who under pressure seeks to consciously
tion makes the depression worse rather than better monitor every finger movement quickly discover.,
(Doweiko, 1990). Likewise, because socializing with that both speed and accuracy suffer.
friends is often effective at curing a sad or depressed Choking is thus a paradigmatic instance of this sec-
mood, people may try it to cure angry moods, but in ond form of misregulation. The person successfully
many cases they end up reciting their grievances or overrides the normal, habitual, overlearned or auto-
problems to these friends and rekindling their own matic response but the person cannot make him- or
anger (Tice & Baumeister, 1993). herself perform effectively without using those skills.
The second general pattern of misregulationinvolves The result is that the person ends up performing worse
the quixotic effort to control things that are beyond the than usual as a direct result of efforts to perform better
scope of potential control. There are many automatic or than usual.
~nnatelyprepared processes that people simply cannot The third broad pattern of misregulation involves
alter and their efforts to control them directly are likely aiming one's self-regulatory efforts at a tangential.
to backfire. One rather clear example is that most peripheral, or irrelevant part of the problem. Many
emotional and mood states cannot be altered directly by problems that confront people have multiple aspects
sheer act of will (hence the pervasiveness of indirect and self-regulatory efforts can be focused on any part
strategies for affect regulation). If people try to alter of them. If the person selects the wrong aspect of his or
their moods directly, they are likely to be unsuccessful her behavior to regulate, the problem will not be solved
and indeed the failure of their efforts may make them and may even get worse.
feel worse. 'The most common pattern of misregulation involves
Thought suppression is a good example of such emphasizing (short-term) affect regulation at the ex
quixotic misregulation. People often seem to believe pense of some other, more lasting and substantive as-
that they can directly control their thoughts and so pect. Often a particular problem consists of both
they believe that unwanted thoughts can be driven practical obstacles or difficulties and subjective, emo-
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

tional distress, and when people respond by focusing regulatory patterns, it is important to realize that the
their efforts on emotional regulation they neglect the majority of such violations are inherently trivial. A
more fundamental, practical aspects, thereby leaving single cookie may violate a weight-loss plan, but the
the problem unsolved or even compounding it. By impact of that cookie on the diet is probably minimal.
giving priority to affect regulation, they allow the cause The socially important instances of self-regulation fail-
of the problem to get worse and so in the long run they ure tend to involve large-scale breakdowns such as
end up worse off. Often they end up feeling worse even binges. To be sure, a binge may begin with a single
though affect regulation was their top priority. lapse, but to understand the lapse is not sufficient to
This form of misregulation can be seen in some explain the binge.
patterns of procrastination. A person may have a project Our review concluded that in many cases a second
deadline but working on the project causes anxiety, and important set of causes of self-regulation failure
possibly because the project is important and because only enters the picture after an initial lapse, and indeed
the person wants to do very well. Putting off working as a result of that lapse. We use the term lapse-activated
on the project thus becomes an effective means of affect causes to describe these factors. This concept was
regulation in the short run because one escapes from anticipated in addiction research by Marlatt (1985),
anxiety each time one elects not to work on the task; whose term abstinence violation effect referred to the
the cumulative effect of such decisions makes the prob- tendency for people to respond to an initial indulgence
lem considerably worse because the time until the in alcohol or other addictive but forbidden substance by
deadline grows shorter, making it ever harder to do a consuming more. The category of lapse-activated re-
good job. As the deadline looms, the panic response sponses includes abstinence violation effects as well as
becomes ever better justified. other, conceptually similar patterns that are not con-
Giving top priority to affect regulation may also be cerned with abstinence.
a factor behind many destructive patterns of failed An early clear demonstration of lapse-activated
impulse control. Many consummatory responses are misregulation was by Herman and Mack (1975), who
affectively pleasant and so people will indulge in them termed their effects counterregulatory eating. In their
as a way of regulating their emotions. People may study, dieters who had been preloaded with food actu-
smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, take drugs, go on ally went on to eat more than dieters who had not had
shopping sprees, engage in promiscuous sex, or gamble such a preload, contrary to what nondieters do (and
away their money as a way of escaping from a bad what common sense would prescribe). Subsequent re-
mood, but the consequencesof such actions can be even search has demonstrated that a person's beliefs are the
worse than what caused the bad mood in the first place. primary determinants of this disinhibited eating. For
Thus, eating or drinking binges may occur because the instance, dieters will engage in counterregulatory eat-
person thinks that eating or drinking will remedy the ing when they have eaten very small amounts of per-
emotional distress. Shilts (1987) cited some survey ceived high-calorie foods (e.g., a small bite of
evidence that when the AIDS epidemic was first chocolate) but will be able to maintain their diets if they
spreading, many gay men became distraught and upset believe they have not broken their diets (even if they
over the danger and responded by going out to engage have consumed an incredibly fatty Caesar salad). The
in promiscuous, unprotected male-male sex to get their dieter's initial minor transgression leads to such
minds off those stressful thoughts. Although that re- thoughts as, "What the hell, I have blown it, so I may
sponse may have been effective as self-distraction, it as well eat the whole darn thing." The irony is that the
tended to increase the underlying problem. small amount of fattening food in the initial lapse does
Thus, the category of misregulation encompasses not constitute a serious threat to the dieter's goal of
several forms of the misuse or ineffective use of self- weight loss-but the subsequent binge eating does
control. People may fail at self-regulationbecause they sabotage that goal.
are trying to control the wrong aspect of the process or Marlatt (1985) documented this lapse-activated pat-
because they are trying to control something that is tern across a number of addictive and problematic
essentially immune to control. False beliefs and as- behaviors, including smoking, alcoholism, and heroin
sumptions about the contingencies between one's own addiction. Marlatt's model suggests that lapses often
acts and one's outcomes often play an important role. arise in high-risk situations in which a person has
difficulty coping. Marlatt argues that a lapse becomes
Lapse-ActivatedResponses a relapse largely because of the person's commitment
to complete and absolute abstinence. Performing the
Although considerable research has focused on what forbidden behavior leads to unpleasant dissonance and
causes people to violate their standards or other self- self-attributions of weakness and failure. The attribu-
 RAUMEISTER & HEATHERTON

tion of failure to the self diminishes the person's sense of skilled performance (i.e., they may choke). The
of self-control and he or she abandons attempts to rein result of this impairment may be to increase the pres-
in subsequent behavior. Thus, a minor transgression is sure on them to perform well so as to overcome the
seen as a catastrophe rather than a small slip and this problems caused by the initial choking. As the pressure
perception induces the person to abdicate all self-con- increases, they may choke even more. Schlenker, Phil-
trol. Marlatt's research has led to a therapy known as lips, Boniecki, and Schlenker (1995) showed that home
relapse prevention, which consists primarily of cogni- teams in championship final baseball games tend to
tive restructuring to help the addict cope with high-risk make errors when they fall behind, presumably in pal t
situations and with lapses. because they are trying to overcome their initial deficlt
For our purposes, the key point is that several causal Although more systematic data are needed, the recent
factors come into play as a result of an initial lapse in Super Bowl games have provided vivid illustrations ot
self-control and these can undermine self-control sub- such spiraling failures, as the Buffalo teams have made
sequently. Moreover, it is often the subsequent break- more and more mistakes once they began to fall behind
down in self-control that has the most severe and Likewise, test anxiety seems to conform to the pattern
disastrous results. There are several mechanisms of in which the person becomes preoccupied by ruminat
lapse-activated patterns, as follows. Ing over an initial failure (to know an answer) anti
One important mechanism is that people may because of this preoccupation becomes unable to con
cease monitoring themselves after an initial lapse, centrate on subsequent questions (see Wine, 197 1 )
possibly because it would be distressing to attend to Destructive patterns of persistence also have elr
their behavior when they have already failed to live ments of lapse-activated causality. In many cases, peo
up to standards, and possibly because the initial lapse ple must invest time and energy as well as other
may provide such pleasure or intense sensation that resources (e.g., money or prestige) in some decision lit
they focus narrowly on it (i.e., loss of transcen- ~tgoes bad, people are reluctant to cut their losses, and
dence). Polivy (1976) showed that dieters who had Indeed the more they invest the more difficult it be
been preloaded with food apparently ceased to keep comes for them to accept that course of action is futile,
track of how much they ate, as indicated by errors in and so the eventual losses continue to mount (e.g
retrospective self-reports of subsequent consump- Razerman, Giuliano, & Appelman, 1984; Staw, 1976)
tion. More generally, eating binges seem to be In Teger's (1980) phrase, people become "too much
marked by an immersion in sensation and a cessation ~nvestedto quit" and so they invest-and lose--eon
of monitoring one's own behavior (Heatherton & siderably more.
Baumeister, 1991). There are of course also interpersonal aspects r c b
Spiraling patterns of distress may also be a form of many self-control situations, and these can be activated
lapse-activated causes of misregulation. An initial by lapses so as to contribute to escalating failures of
lapse may occur because the person was suffering from self-regulation. The most obvious example woulti
some form of distress. The lapse may, however, gener- probably involve violent episodes. An initial aggre!,
ate guilt, fear, anxiety, or other forms of distress, sive outburst may be a momentary lapse in self-contrcd
thereby making the person feel worse. The escalating but it may have lasting effects if someone else is harmed
distress may contribute to a further abandonment of or provoked. An aggressive response by others (or ever)
self-control. the formation by others of an expectation that the
Distress is of course not the only emotion that can be ~ndividualis prone to violent outbursts) may lead
activated by a lapse and contribute to further break- turther violence.
downs in self-regulation. Lawson (1988) noted that Ironically, some factors that aid self-regulation up t o
many people will initially engage in extramarital sex on the point of an initial lapse may turn into factors that
the assumption that it will be a casual, isolated episode produce misregulation as the result of such a lapse
that will not affect or threaten their marriage. Some Most prominent among these are zero-tolerance he
find, however, that they begin to experience love or liefs. Such belief$,which are common in some spheres,
other forms of intimate attachmentto their illicit partner catastrophize the initial lapse as a way of preventing II
and these feelings may cause the extramarital involve- People are encouraged to believe that having a single
ment to escalate, even to the point at which it does drink, committing a single sexual indiscretion, or tak
become a threat to the marriage. Ing a single dose of a drug on one occasion will lead t o
As we noted, some lapse-activated patterns have disaster (see also Marlatt, 1985). Undoubtedly such
little to do with abstinence violations. Performance bel~efsdiscourage people from allowing a lapse [if
effects may provide one instance. Under pressure to happen. If a lapse does occur, however, such belief4
perform well, people may experience some impairment may help produce lapse-activated increases i n the un
 SELF-REGULATION FAILURE

wanted behavior. The person may feel that a catastro- would be excessive to say that people freely choose to
phe has occurred and that there is no use in making lose control, they do seem to show considerable active
further efforts at self-control. Alternatively, the person participation and acquiescence in the behaviors that
may find that the predicted catastrophic consequences constitute self-regulatory failure. We suggested that
have not materialized and conclude that the fears and self-regulation often involves an unpleasant inner con-
warnings were entirely unfounded. Zero-tolerance be- flict marked by competing wishes and uncertainty. If
liefs can be compared to a military strategy of putting the person decides even briefly to relax self-control,
all troops in the front line, which will indeed strengthen typically he or she will not consider reinstating it and
the front line but will leave the army with no reserves so a brief abdication of self-regulatory effort can lead
to use if the front line is breached. to a serious, protracted breakdown. In colloquial terms,
the popular image of a moment of weakness is more
Conclusion accurate than the image of the irresistible impulse.
Moreover, culture can exert considerable influence by
Self-regulation is a complex mechanism that can teaching people which circumstances make it appropri-
break down in many different ways. Underregulation ate to abandon control.
occurs because people lack stable, clear, consistent Unfortunately, the norms and forces that current1y
standards, because they fail to monitor their actions, or dominate modern Western culture seem generally con-
because they lack the strength to override the responses ducive to weakening self-control. As long as this is the
they wish to control. Misregulationoccurs because they case, it seems likely that our society will continue to
operate on the basis of false assumptions about them- suffer from widespread and even epidemic problems
selves and about the world, because they try to control that have self-regulatory failure as a common core.
things that cannot be directly controlled, or because
they give priority to emotions while neglecting more
important and fundamental problems. Note
We have proposed that the evidence about self-reg-
ulatory failures conforms to a strength model; that is, Roy F. Baumeister,Department of Psychology, Case
the capacity to regulate oneself is a limited, renewable Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44 106-
resource. When stress or fatigue depletes an 7123.
individual's strength, self-regulatory failures become
more likely. Capacities for self-controlare an important References
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effective self-regulationoften requires the individual to Baumeister, R. F. (1984). Choking under pressure: Self-conscious-
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quences of high self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social
of lapse-activated causes. That is, an initial and seem- Psychology, 64, 141-1 56.
ingly minor breakdown in self-control may set off other Baumeister, R. F.,Heatherton, T. F., & Tice, D. M. (1994). Losing
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the initial lapse may often be trivial, whereas the binge Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1995).
Personal narratives about guilt: Role in action control and inter-
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