Self-Control as Hybrid Skill

Abstract

A main obstacle to the successful pursuit of long-term goals is a lack of self-control. But what is the capacity for self-control? The aim of this chapter is to contribute to an overarching theory of self-control by exploring the proposal that it is best understood as a form of hybrid skill. The authors draw on recent work on skill in the domain of motor control to highlight important ways in which experts differ from novices in the capacities they deploy. They then consider how the resulting framework can be applied to the domain of self-control. The chapter ends by examining how this approach can help reconcile a motivational construal of self-control, according to which it involves resisting competing temptations in order to do what one deems best, and an executive construal, in which the emphasis is on overriding “cold” habits that are at odds with what one intends to do.