In the Trenches of Real-World Self-Control

Abstract

Successful goal pursuit involves repeatedly engaging self-control against temptations or distractions that arise along the way. Laboratory studies have identified the brain systems recruited during isolated instances of self-control, and ecological studies have linked self-control capacity to goal outcomes. However, no study has identified the neural systems of everyday self-control during long-term goal pursuit. The present study integrated neuroimaging and experience-sampling methods to investigate the brain systems of successful self-control among smokers attempting to quit. A sample of 27 cigarette smokers completed a go/no-go task during functional magnetic resonance imaging before they attempted to quit smoking and then reported everyday self-control using experience sampling eight times daily for 3 weeks while they attempted to quit. Increased activation in right inferior frontal gyrus, pre-supplementary motor area, and basal ganglia regions of interest during response inhibition at baseline was associated with an attenuated association between cravings and subsequent smoking. These findings support the ecological validity of neurocognitive tasks as indices of everyday response inhibition.

Keywords

self-control smoking cessation brain-as-predictor right inferior frontal gyrus response inhibition text messaging

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Achtziger

Gollwitzer

P.M.

Sheeran

(2008). Implementation intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 381–393.

Allen

S.S.

Bade

Hatsukami

Center

(2008). Craving, withdrawal, and smoking urges on days immediately prior to smoking relapse. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 10, 35–45.

Aron

A.R.

Durston

Eagle

D.M.

Logan

G.D.

Stinear

C.M.

Stuphorn

(2007). Converging evidence for a fronto-basal-ganglia network for inhibitory control of action and cognition. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 11860–11864.

Aron

A.R.

Fletcher

P.C.

Bullmore

E.T.

Sahakian

B.J.

Robbins

T.W.

(2003). Stop-signal inhibition disrupted by damage to right inferior frontal gyrus in humans. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 115–116.

Aron

A.R.

Poldrack

R.A.

(2006). Cortical and subcortical contributions to Stop signal response inhibition: Role of the subthalamic nucleus. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 2424–2433.

Aron

A.R.

Robbins

T.W.

Poldrack

R.A.

(2004). Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 170–177.

Bandettini

P.A.

(2009). What’s new in neuroimaging methods? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156, 260–293.

Bauer

D.J.

Curran

P.J.

(2005). Probing interactions in fixed and multilevel regression: Inferential and graphical techniques. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 40, 373–400.

Berkman

E.T.

Burklund

Lieberman

M.D.

(2009). Inhibitory spillover: Intentional motor inhibition produces incidental limbic inhibition via right inferior frontal cortex. NeuroImage, 47, 705–712.

10.

Berkman

E.T.

Lieberman

M.D.

(2009). The neuroscience of goal pursuit: Bridging gaps between theory and data. In Moskowitz

Grant

(Eds.), The psychology of goals (pp. 98–126). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

11.

Biener

Abrams

D.B.

(1991). The contemplation ladder: Validation of a measure of readiness to consider smoking cessation. Health Psychology, 10, 360–365.

12.

Botvinick

M.M.

Cohen

J.D.

Carter

C.S.

(2004). Conflict monitoring and anterior cingulate cortex: An update. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 539–546.

13.

Chambers

C.D.

Bellgrove

M.A.

Stokes

M.G.

Henderson

T.R.

Garavan

Robertson

I.H.

. (2006). Executive ‘‘brake failure’’ following deactivation of human frontal lobe. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 444–455.

14.

Eisenberger

N.I.

Gable

S.L.

Lieberman

M.D.

(2007). Functional magnetic resonance imaging responses relate to differences in real-world social experience. Emotion, 7, 745–754.

15.

Falk

E.B.

Berkman

E.T.

Mann

Harrison

Lieberman

M.D.

(2010). Predicting persuasion-induced behavior change from the brain. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 8421–8424.

16.

Finkel

DeWall

Slotter

Oaten

Foshee

(2009). Self-regulatory failure and intimate partner violence perpetration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 483–499.

17.

Fuster

J.M.

(2008). The prefrontal cortex (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Academic Press/Elsevier.

18.

Hare

T.A.

Camerer

C.F.

Rangel

(2009). Self-control in decision-making involves modulation of the vmPFC valuation system. Science, 324, 646–648.

19.

Haxby

J.V.

Gobbini

M.I.

Furey

M.L.

Ishai

Schouten

J.L.

Pietrini

(2001). Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex. Science, 293, 2425–2430.

20.

Heatherton

T.F.

Kozlowski

L.T.

Frecker

R.C.

Fagerström

K.O.

(1991). The Fagerström Test for nicotine dependence: A revision of the Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire. British Journal of Addiction, 86, 1119–1127.

21.

Leung

H.-C.

Cai

(2007). Common and differential ventrolateral prefrontal activity during inhibition of hand and eye movements. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 9893–9900.

22.

Maldjian

J.A.

Laurienti

P.J.

Kraft

R.A.

Burdette

J.H.

(2003). An automated method for neuroanatomic and cytoarchitectonic atlas-based interrogation of fMRI data sets. NeuroImage, 19, 1233–1239.

23.

Monterosso

J.R.

Aron

A.R.

Cordova

London

E.D.

(2005). Deficits in response inhibition associated with chronic methamphetamine abuse. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 79, 273–277.

24.

Mostofsky

S.H.

Simmonds

D.J.

(2008). Response inhibition and response selection: Two sides of the same coin. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 751–761.

25.

Muraven

(2010). Building self-control strength: Practicing self-control leads to improved self-control performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 465–468.

26.

Nachev

Wydell

O’Neill

Husain

Kennard

(2007). The role of the pre-supplementary motor area in the control of action. NeuroImage, 36, T155–T163.

27.

Nigg

J.T.

Wong

M.M.

Martel

M.M.

Jester

J.M.

Puttler

L.I.

Glass

J.M.

. (2006). Poor response inhibition as a predictor of problem drinking and illicit drug use in adolescents at risk for alcoholism and other substance use disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 45, 468–475.

28.

Oaten

Cheng

(2006). Improved self-control: The benefits of a regular program of academic study. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 28, 1–16.

29.

Raudenbush

S.W.

Bryk

A.S.

Cheong

Y.F.

Congdon

(2004). HLM6: Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling. Lincolnwood, IL: Scientific Software International.

30.

Rollnick

Heather

Gold

Hall

(1992). Development of a short ‘readiness to change’ questionnaire for use in brief, opportunistic interventions among excessive drinkers. British Journal of Addiction, 87, 743–754.

31.

Rothman

A.J.

Sheeran

Wood

(2009). Reflective and automatic processes in the initiation and maintenance of dietary change. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 38, S4–S17.

32.

Shiffman

Balabanis

M.H.

Gwaltney

C.J.

Paty

J.A.

Gnys

Kassel

J.D.

. (2007). Prediction of lapse from associations between smoking and situational antecedents assessed by ecological momentary assessment. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 91, 159–168.

33.

Shiffman

Engberg

J.B.

Paty

J.A.

Perz

W.G.

Gnys

Kassel

J.D.

Hickcox

(1997). A day at a time: Predicting smoking lapse from daily urge. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 104–116.

34.

Soon

C.S.

Brass

Heinze

H.-J.

Haynes

J.-D.

(2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 543–545.

35.

Tiffany

S.T.

Drobes

D.J.

(1991). The development and initial validation of a questionnaire on smoking urges. British Journal of Addiction, 86, 1467–1476.

36.

Tzourio-Mazoyer

Landeau

Papathanassiou

Crivello

Etard

Delcroix

Mazoyer

M.J.

(2002). Automated anatomical labeling of activations in SPM using a macroscopic anatomical parcellation of the MNI MRI single-subject brain. NeuroImage, 15, 273–289.

37.

Van Gaal

Ridderinkhof

K.R.

Scholte

H.S.

Lamme

V.A.F.

(2010). Unconscious activation of the prefrontal no-go network. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 4143–4150.

38.

Wager

T.D.

Sylvester

C.-Y.C.

Lacey

S.C.

Nee

D.E.

Franklin

Jonides

(2005). Common and unique components of response inhibition revealed by fMRI. NeuroImage, 27, 323–340.

39.

Williams

L.M.

Brown

K.J.

Palmer

Liddell

B.J.

Kemp

A.H.

Olivieri

. (2006). The mellow years?: Neural basis of improving emotional stability over age. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 6422–6430.

40.

Wood

Neal

D.T.

(2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114, 843–863.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.05 MB

0.11 MB

0.05 MB

0.02 MB