Teaching & learning guide for: Challenges in the conceptualization of trait self‐control as a psychological construct

Abstract

Trait self-control is widely regarded as a powerful predictor of a broad range of desirable life outcomes. Trait self-control is correlated with and believed to contribute to physical and mental health, life satisfaction, interpersonal relationship quality and stability, academic and professional achievement, financial wealth, lack of criminal offending, and even the pace of biological aging (e.g., Belsky et al., 2017;. The predictive power of trait self-control for these outcomes spans years and decades and goes beyond other important predictors of a person's life journey, including intelligence and socioeconomic status (e.g., Daly et al., 2015;Daly et al., 2016;Moffitt et al., 2011). Training interventions to foster trait self-control have been conceptualized and applied, albeit with limited success (e.g., . Other interventions have focused on situational strategies to foster goal-congruent behavior . The potential of improving self-control for individuals and society at large seems enormous.Despite this thriving and diverse literature, foundational conceptual questions about trait self-control remain difficult to answer. There are several different theoretical perspectives on what (trait) self-control is, obfuscating what exactly the term refers to and how the construct is anchored in a nomological network of related constructs (e.g.,