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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Know your weaknesses: Sophisticated impulsiveness motivates voluntary self-restrictions
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Alexander Soutschek
  • Philippe Tobler
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Publisher American Psychological Association
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0278-7393
Volume 46
Number 9
Page Range 1611 - 1623
Date 2020
Abstract Text Restricting one's access to temptations (precommitment) facilitates the achievement of long-term goals. The sophisticated impulsiveness model of precommitment posits that impulsive agents who are aware that they are impulsive should show the strongest preference for precommitment. Empirically however, two central predictions of this theoretical notion remained untested: whether impulsiveness causally drives the demand for precommitment and whether the willingness to precommit depends on metacognitive awareness of one's impulsiveness. Here, we tested these predictions in three independent experiments. Participants performed a delay discounting task in which they could precommit to larger-later rewards. The results of Experiment 1 provide causal evidence that reducing impulse control capacities increases precommitment demand. Moreover, Experiments 2 and 3 support the hypothesis that metacognitive awareness of one's impulsiveness moderates the relationship between impulsiveness and precommitment. Together, our data put the sophisticated impulsiveness model of precommitment on strong empirical foundations.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1037/xlm0000833
PubMed ID 32134317
Other Identification Number merlin-id:19580
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Keywords Linguistics and Language, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Language and Linguistics
Additional Information This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.