Main description:

The ability to prioritise long-term goals above short-term gratifications is crucial to living a healthy and happy life. We are bombarded with temptations, whether from fast-food or faster technologies, but the psychological capacity to manage our lives within such a challenging environment has far-reaching implications for the well-being not only of the individual, but also society as a whole.

The Routledge International Handbook of Self-Control in Health and Wellbeing is the first comprehensive handbook to map this burgeoning area of research by applying it to health outcomes and personal well-being. Including contributions from leading scholars worldwide, the book incorporates new research findings that suggest that simply inhibiting our immediate impulses isn't the whole story; there may be more options to improve self-control than simply by suppressing the ego.

Divided into six coherent sections, the book provides an overview of the research base before discussing a range of interventions to help improve self-control in different contexts, from smoking or drinking too much to developing self-control over aggression or spending money. The only definitive handbook on this far-reaching topic, this essential work will appeal to researchers and students across health and social psychology, as well as related health sciences.

Contents:

1. Introduction

Part I. Conceptualizing Self-Control

2. Attentional and motivational mechanisms of self-control

Marina Milyavskaya & Michael Inzlicht

3. Proactive and reactive self-control

Asael Sklar, So Yon Rim, & Kentaro Fujita

4. Positioning self-control in a dual-systems framework

Marleen Gillebaart & Denise de Ridder

5. The use of reward cue reactivity in predicting real-world self-control failure

Dylan D. Wagner

Part II. Assessing Self-Control

6. Ego-depletion, self-control tasks, and the sequential task paradigm in health behavior

Martin S. Hagger & Nikos L. D. Chatzisarantis

7. Measurement of self-control by self-report: Considerations and recommendations

Rick H. Hoyle & Erin K. Davisson

8. The health consequences of intertemporal preferences

Oleg Urminsky & Gal Zauberman

9. Assessing self-control: The use and usefulness of the experience-sampling method

Simone Dohle & Wilhelm Hofmann

10. The neuroscience of self-control

Elliot T. Berkman

Part III. Antecedents and Consequences of Self-Control

11. What limits self-control? A motivated effort-allocation account

Daniel C. Molden, Chin Ming Hui, & Abigail A. Scholer

12. Implicit theories about willpower and their implications for health and well-being

Katharina Bernecker & Veronika Job

13. Working memory capacity and self-control

Wilhelm Hofmann

14. Combatting temptation to promote health and well-being

Ayelet Fishbach & Kaitlin Woolley

15. Broadening mental horizons to resist temptation: Construal level and self-control

David Kalkstein, Kentaro Fujita, & Yaacov Trope

16. The sense of agency in health and well-being: Understanding the role of the minimal self in action control

Robert A. Renes & Henk Aarts

17. Justification as antecedent and consequence of self-control failure

Marieke A. Adriaanse & Sosja Prinsen

18. Hyperopia: A theory of reverse self-control

Ran Kivetz, Rachel Meng, & Daniel He

Part IV. Self-Control Applications to Health

19. The self-control of eating behavior

Traci Mann & Mary E. Panos

20. Self-control and alcohol consumption

Jeffrey M. Osgood & Mark Muraven

21. Desire, higher-order sexual health goals and self-control in sexual behavior and sexual risk

John B. F. de Wit, Chantal den Daas, & Philippe C.G. Adam

22. Self-control and physical activity: Disentangling the pathways to health

Emely de Vet & Kirsten T. Verkooijen

23. The role of self-control in sleep behavior

Sanne Nauts & Floor M. Kroese

24. Self-control in smoking cessation

Arie Dijkstra

Part V. Self-Control Applications to Wellbeing

25. Emotion regulation and self-control: Implications for health and wellbeing

Catharine Evers

26. Self-regulation and aggression: Aggression-provoking cues, individual differences, and self-control strategies

Jaap Denissen, Sander Thomaes, & Brad J. Bushman

27. Examining the role of self-regulatory strength in family violence

Catrin Finkenauer, Asuman Buyukcan-Tetik, Kim Schoemaker, Yayouk E. Willems, Meike Bartels, & Roy F. Baumeister

28. The effects of managing discrimination experiences on self-control, health, and well-being

Dorainne J. Levy & Jennifer A. Richeson

29. Self-distancing: Basic mechanisms and clinical implications

OEzlem Ayduk & Ethan Kross

30. Self-control in consumer spending decisions

Kelly L. Haws

31. How self-control promotes health through relationships

Michelle R. vanDellen, LeeAnn B. Beam, & Grainne M. Fitzsimons

Part VI. Improving Self-Control in Health and Wellbeing

32. A Meta-analysis of improving self-control with practice

Joanne R. Beames, Timothy P. Schofield, & Thomas F. Denson

33. Health behavior change by self-regulation of goal pursuit: Mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Gabriele Oettingen & Peter M. Gollwitzer

34. Mindfulness as an intervention to improve self-control

Malte Friese, Brian Ostafin, & David D. Loschelder

35. How to foster health and well-being when self-control is low

Bob M. Fennis

36. Training cognitive-motivational processes underlying self-control in addiction

Reinout W. Wiers & Helle Larsen

37. The nudging approach to health and wellbeing

David R. Marchiori & Marijn Stok

38. Exploiting exposure to temptation to support self-control

Siegfried Dewitte

39. Self-affirmation and self-control: Counteracting defensive processing of health information and facilitating health behavior change

Guido M. van Koningsbruggen, Eleanor Miles, & Peter R. Harris