A theory was proposed to reconcile paradoxical findings on the invariance of personality and the variability of behavior across situations. For this purpose, individuals were assumed to differ in (a) the accessibility of cognitive-affective mediating units (such as encodings, expectancies and beliefs, affects, and goals) and (b) the organization of relationships through which these units interact with each other and with psychological features of situations. The theory accounts for individual differences in predictable patterns of variability across situations (e.g., if A then she X, but if B then she Y), as well as for overall average levels of behavior, as essential expressions or behavioral signatures of the same underlying personality system. Situations, personality dispositions, dynamics, and structure were reconceptualized from this perspective.

To function effectively, individuals must voluntarily postpone immediate gratification and persist in goal-directed behavior for the sake of later outcomes. The present research program analyzed the nature of this type of future-oriented self-control and the psychological processes that underlie it. Enduring individual differences in self-control were found as early as the preschool years. Those 4-year-old children who delayed gratification longer in certain laboratory situations developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and coping better with frustration and stress. Experiments in the same research program also identified specific cognitive and attentional processes that allow effective self-regulation early in the course of development. The experimental results, in turn, specified the particular types of preschool delay situations diagnostic for predicting aspects of cognitive and social competence later in life.

A 2-system framework is proposed for understanding the processes that enable--and undermine--self-control or "willpower" as exemplified in the delay of gratification paradigm. A cool, cognitive "know" system and a hot, emotional "go" system are postulated. The cool system is cognitive, emotionally neutral, contemplative, flexible, integrated, coherent, spatiotemporal, slow, episodic, and strategic. It is the seat of self-regulation and self-control. The hot system is the basis of emotionality, fears as well as passions--impulsive and reflexive--initially controlled by innate releasing stimuli (and, thus, literally under "stimulus control"): it is fundamental for emotional (classical) conditioning and undermines efforts at self-control. The balance between the hot and cool systems is determined by stress, developmental level, and the individual's self-regulatory dynamics. The interactions between these systems allow explanation of findings on willpower from 3 decades of research.

ResumenEl presente estudio tiene el propósito de convertir en medio educativo un problema generalizado entre adolescentes, como es la gestión de las emociones experimentadas durante la práctica de actividades lúdicas y deportivas. La Asociación Aldeas Infantiles SOS y la Fundación Rafa Nadal, buscan canalizar sus ideales de promoción social a través de la creación de un programa denominado "Integración y Deporte", escenario apropiado para desarrollar la investigación. Niños y niñas de 10 a 16 años (un total de 20) en situación de riesgo de exclusión son el objeto de estudio, todos participantes del mencionado programa. El método empleado ha girado en torno al estudio de caso, un ejemplo espejo, donde intentamos descubrir la forma en que los menores gobiernan el caudal emotivo generado por los estímulos externos, provocadores de emociones primarias como repeler la agresión con patadas, puñetazos, incultos verbales, ansiedad… Los resultados conforman un modelo educativo de autogestión de las emociones tejido en base al hallazgo de tres categorías: habilidades cognitivas, dialógicas y evitativas-distractivas.Palabras clave: Emociones, sentimientos, habilidades de gestión, deporte, educación. AbstractThe present study aims to become in educational tool management a general social problem among teenagers as it's the management of experienced emotions during the practice of sports and leisure activities. The SOS Children's Village Association and the Rafa Nadal Foundation, look for how to drive their promotion ideals through the creation of a program named Integration and Sports, the scene where the research is conducted. It's been boys and girls from 10 to 16 years old (in a total of 20 people) at risk social exclusion who have taken part in this mentioned program. The method has turned around the "case of study", a mirror example, which has tried to discover how children, for themselves, govern the emotional flow generated in the brain by external stimuli, which causes primary emotions as repelling attacks with kicks, punches, verbal uncultured, anxiety…The results define an educative model of emotions self-

Variations of the self-imposed delay-of-gratification situation in preschool were compared to determine when individual differences in this situation may predict aspects of cognitive and self-regulatory competence and coping in adolescence. Preschool children from a university community participated in experiments that varied features of the self-imposed delay situation. Experimental analyses of the cognitive-attentional processes that affect waiting in this situation helped identify conditions in which delay behavior would be most likely to reflect relevant cognitive and attentional competencies. As hypothesized, in those conditions, coherent patterns of statistically significant correlations were found between seconds of delay time in such conditions in preschool and cognitive and academic competence and ability to cope with frustration and stress in adolescence. To be able to delay immediate satisfaction for the sake of future consequences has long been considered an essential achievement of human development. After a series of investigations into the individual differences associated with the choice to delay gratification (e.g.