Self-control has been measured using a variety of methods including self-report measures, cognitive inhibition tasks, delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks, and persistence and willpower tasks. Although these are all theoretically linked to processes involved in self-control, recent evidence has shown that these diverse measurement techniques relate only minimally to one another. Assuming that self-control is a reflective construct, this would indicate that many of these tasks are poor indicators of self-control. The present research challenges the common assumption that self-control is a reflective construct and instead proposes that self-control is a formative construct. Conceptualizing of self-control as a formative construct could reconcile some of the inconsistencies in the literature, in particular the fact that many indicators for self-control do not correlate highly. To examine the possibility of a formative model of self-control, this research examines 13 commonly used measures of self-control and investigates indicator intercorrelations, indicator relationships with the theoretical consequences of self-control, and performs a vanishing tetrad test (Bollen & Ting, 2000). Results show that in general, indicator intercorrelations are low and nonsignificant as well as indictor correlations with theorized construct consequences. The results of the vanishing tetrad test suggest a reflective interpretation of self-control, but concerns with uniformly low covariances between indicators limit the interpretation of this test. It is concluded that currently available measures of self-control contain large sources of error variance and that questions about the ontological nature of the construct will be unanswerable until more precise measures are developed.

A wide range of measures have been used to assess self-control including executive function tasks, delay of gratification tasks, and persistence and willpower tasks. The current study sought to examine the convergent and predictive validity of these measures, provide theoretical backing for why we might or might not expect high correlations between different indicators of the construct, and question whether such measures are assessing construct-level variance. The results largely replicated prior research, with the majority of correlations being small in magnitude and non-significant. Possible interpretations include indicators assessing distinct and unrelated subdomains of self-control, the inappropriate use of measures that maximize within person variance, indicators being plagued by large sources of error variance, or some combination of these.

Self-control has been measured using a variety of methods including self-report measures, cognitive inhibition tasks, delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks, and persistence and willpower tasks. Although these are all theoretically linked to processes involved in self-control, recent evidence has shown that these diverse measurement techniques relate only minimally to one another. Assuming that self-control is a reflective construct, this would indicate that many of these tasks are poor indicators of self-control. The present research challenges the common assumption that self-control is a reflective construct and instead proposes that self-control is a formative construct. Conceptualizing self-control as a formative construct could reconcile some of the inconsistencies in the literature, in particular the fact that many indicators for self-control do not correlate highly. To examine the possibility of a formative model of self-control, this research examines 13 commonly used measures of self-control and investigates indicator intercorrelations, indicator relationships with the theoretical consequences of self-control, and performs a vanishing tetrad test (Bollen & Ting, 2000). Results show that in general, indicator intercorrelations are low and nonsignificant as well as indictor correlations with theorized construct consequences. The results of the vanishing tetrad test suggest a reflective interpretation of self-control, but concerns with uniformly low covariances between indicators limit the interpretation of this test.