ABSTRACT
Self-control – the process of advancing global goals over local concerns, often characterized by the forgoing of immediate gratification for the sake of more valuable long-term ends – is crucial in the pursuit of health and well-being. One might even suggest that people engage in self-control on a daily basis. For example, people brush their teeth every night to promote dental health, they resist tasty but unhealthy foods, exercise despite the fatigue of a long day, commit to and appear for uncomfortable medical exams, and overcome powerful urges to abuse substances such as alcohol and cigarettes. In all of these examples, and countless more, people exercise self-control when they resist immediate temptations that threaten to undermine more distal yet more valued health goals. Unfortunately, self-control failures are also commonplace. People do not always adhere to diets or exercise plans, they sometimes put off visits to the doctor, and they can regrettably relapse into addiction. These failures of self-control are troublingly ubiquitous and represent a threat to people’s health and well-being. In this chapter, we review research highlighting how understanding the psychological processes that underlie how people think about near versus distant events provides new insight into the who, when, and why people succeed or fail in self-control dilemmas.
