The (In)significance of Executive Functions for the Trait of Self-Control: A Psychometric Study

Edward Nȩcka · Aleksandra Gruszka · Jarosław Orzechowski · Natalia E. Wójcik

44 citations0/0 files storedFrontiers in Psychology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Behavioral Health and Interventions Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies Grit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation

Abstract

Self-control (SC) is an individual trait defined as the ability to pursue long-distance goals in spite of the obstacles generated by current desires, innate or learned automatisms, and physiological needs of an organism. This trait is relatively stable across the life span and it predicts such important features as level of income, quality of social relationships, and proneness to addictions. It is widely believed that the cognitive substrate of SC involves the executive functions (EFs), such as inhibitory control, shifting of attention, and working memory updating. However, the empirical evidence concerning the relationships between trait SC and EFs is not convincing. The present study aims to address two questions: (1) what is the strength of relationships between trait SC and EFs, and (2) which aspects of SC are predicted by particular EFs, if at all. In order to answer these questions, we carried out a psychometric study with 296 participants (133 men and 163 women, mean age 23.31, SD 3.64), whom we investigated with three types of tools: (1) a battery SC scales and inventories, (2) a battery of EFs tasks, and (3) two general intelligence tests. Structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data. We found that the latent variables representing SC and the latent variable representing EFs did not show any relationship. The standardized path coefficient between EFs and general intelligence turned out rather strong. We conclude that the trait of SC, measured with questionnaires, does not depend on the strength of cognitive control, measured with EFs tasks.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 44 citations exist upstream.

References

1991THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META‐ANALYSIS 2004High Self‐Control Predicts Good Adjustment, Less Pathology, Better Grades, and Interpersonal Success 1987Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers.1998Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource?2011A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety 2000Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle?2007The Strength Model of Self-Control 1992Four ways five factors are basic

Cited by

2018“Same but different”: Associations between multiple aspects of self-regulation, cognition, and academic abilities.2020Chronic stress, executive functioning, and real‐life self‐control: An experience sampling study 2020Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior 2022Challenges in the conceptualization of trait self‐control as a psychological construct 2022Metacognition and Self-Control: An Integrative Framework

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.