本研究では，実現可能な未来の自己像を構築することが自己制御を効果的に導くために重要であるという，自己制御モデルを提案し，モデルの妥当性ならびに実践的な応用への可能性について議論した。 / 博士(心理学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

Self-control enables people to make decisions that can promote overall well-being. Such decisions include refraining from overeating or the decision to motivate individuals to persevere when faced with difficulties. The purpose of this study was to determine if not requiring the expenditure of self-control and boosting self-esteem would enable participants to persist longer at a task designed to measure self-control than participants who were required to expend self-control and received an ego threat. No significant main effects were found for self-control manipulations, F (1, 223) = .54, p = .46, or for self-esteem manipulations, F (1, 223) = .01, p = .91. No significant interaction effects were found. F(3, 219) = .785, p =.503.

The purpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of ultra-distance runners' experiences of running ultra-distance races. The study is based on six interviews with participants who have ever run an ultra-distance race, a race with a distance longer than 42,195 meters. Through a qualitative approach, a semi-structured interview guide and thematic analysis as an analysis tool, the collected data has been generated in four themes; nutrition and energy - to physically cope all the way, social support and cooperation during the race - a sense of belonging, goal-oriented behavior and self-control to confirm self-efficacy and test boundaries. The first theme aims to tell about the participants' reflections on energy and nutrition to cope all the way, as the stomach is often a common reason why you need to interrupt a race. The second theme explains the importance of social support and cooperation during the course of, among other things, the distraction of other challenges. The third theme describes goal-oriented behavior and the need for self-control among the participants. The fourth and final theme explains testing limits, which includes their need to test the body's mental and physical abilities to the limit. The study's conclusion shows that the participants' experiences have many common aspects in terms of their experiences. Their experience is characterized by stressors in the form of physical pain, lack of energy, mental strain and doubt. At the same time, social support and cooperation was the clearest theme throughout all interviews. Their experiences of running ultra-races stand out when it comes to testing limits. They seek to get through challenges and to test what the body can accomplish, and are happy to do so in community or in collaboration with others. It is based on confirmation of one's own ability to cope with something that is difficult and to feel group affiliation with other ultra runners. / Syftet med studien var att få en djupare förståelse om ultradistanslöpares upplevelser av att springa ultradistanslopp. Studien utgår ifrån sex stycken intervjuer med deltagare som någon gång har sprungit ett ultradistanslopp, alltså ett lopp med längre distans än 42195 meter. Genom kvalitativ ansats, semistrukturerad intervjuguide och tematisk analys som analysverktyg har den insamlade datan genererat i fyra teman; näring och energi - för att fysiskt klara hela vägen, socialt stöd och samarbete under loppet - en känsla av samhörighet, målinriktat beteende och självkontroll för att bekräfta självförmågan och testa gränserna.   Det första temat avser berätta om deltagarnas reflektioner kring energi och näring för att klara hela vägen, då magen ofta är en vanligt orsak till att man behöver avbryta ett lopp. Det andra temat förklarar vikten av socialt stöd och samarbete under loppet för bland annat distraktion av andra utmaningar. Det tredje temat beskriver målinriktat beteende och behovet av självkontroll hos deltagarna. Det fjärde och sista temat förklarar att testa gränser, vilket omfattar deras behov av att testa kroppens mentala och fysiska förmågor till det yttersta.    Studiens slutsats visar att deltagarnas upplevelser har många gemensamma aspekter vad det gäller deras upplevelser. Deras upplevelse präglas av stressorer i form av fysisk smärta, bristande energi, psykisk påfrestning och tvivel. Samtidigt som socialt stöd och samarbete var det mest tydligt genomgående temat i alla intervjuer. Deras upplevelser av att springa ultralopp utmärker sig vad det gäller att testa gränser. De söker att ta sig igenom utmaningar och att testa vad kroppen klarar av att åstadkomma, och gör det gärna i gemenskap eller i samarbete med andra. Det grundar sig i bekräftelse av den egna förmågan att klara av något som är svårt samt att känna gruppsamhörighet med andra ultralöpare.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate to what extent executive functioning has an impact on aggressive and violent behavior contextualized within football supporters. The sample consisted of 142 (111 males and 31 females) football supporters, between 16-71 years old (M=34,58, SD=12,53) who, during the 2022 season of the Swedish football league “Allsvenskan” visited at least one game. Results showed an association between aggressive and violent behavior contextualized within football supporters and certain aspects of executive functions, as well as self-control. The association did not significantly differ depending on frequency of game-day attendance, thus indicating the presence of the association for various subgroups of supporters. The results are in line with previous research on the association between executive functions and aggressive and violent behavior. The present study is one of the few studies adopting a bio-/neurological perspective on football violence. Thus indicating that more research is warranted on this specific topic, as well as a need for a re-evaluation of strategies preventing football violence. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka i vilken utsträckning exekutiva funktioner hos fotbollssupportrar har en inverkan på aggressivt och våldsamt beteende kontextualiserat inom fotbollen. Urvalet bestod av 142 (111 män och 31 kvinnor) fotbollssupportrar mellan 16–71 år (M=34,58, SD=12,53) som under säsongen 2022 i den svenska fotbollsserien “Allsvenskan” besökte minst en match. Resultaten påpekade en association mellan aggressivt och våldsamt beteende inom fotbollen och särskilda aspekter av exekutiva funktioner samt självkontroll. Associationen skiljde sig inte signifikant beroende på besöksfrekvens vid matcher, vilket pekar på att associationen existerar hos flertalet olika typer av supportrar. Resultaten går i linje med tidigare studier som undersökt associationen mellan exekutiva funktioner och aggressivt och våldsamt beteende. Den aktuella studien är en av få studier som applicerat ett bio-/neurologiskt perspektiv på våld inom fotbollen. Detta pekar på behovet av fortsatt forskning inom ämnet samt ett behov av att omvärdera strategierna ämnade att förhindra våld inom fotbollen.

It is a widely held view that humans have control over their food choices and consumption. However, research also suggests that eating behavior is often triggered by contextual cues and guided by automaticities and habits. Interestingly, the dichotomy between automatic and controlled processing has recently been challenged, suggesting that they may be intertwined. In a large female sample (n = 567), we investigated the hypothesis that task-based and self-reported measures of automatic and controlled processing would interact and impact self-reported eating behavior. Results analyzed via structural equation modeling suggest that automatic, but not controlled processing, during a modified flanker task, including a context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) manipulation, was inversely associated with self-reported self-control. The influence of self-control on unhealthy eating behavior (i.e., uncontrolled and emotional eating, heightened consumption of fat and sugar) was only indirect via habitual behavior, which itself had a strong direct impact. Unhealthy eating was further associated with real-life outcomes (e.g., body mass index (BMI)). Our findings suggest that eating behavior may indeed be guided primarily by automaticities and habits, whereas self-control might facilitate this association. Having self-control over eating might therefore be most effective by avoiding contextual cues eliciting undesired automatic behavior and establishing habits that serve long-term goals.

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Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Socioemotional difficulties in childhood have been associated with body weight status and the subsequent development of obesity later in life. However, existing research often overlooks the developmental and dynamic nature of socioemotional functioning. Additionally, there is a lack of systematic examination of this relation across varied aspects of socioeconomic risks. Recent research has highlighted a seemingly paradoxical effect, wherein socioemotional competence is associated with adverse health outcomes among socioeconomically disadvantaged minority youths. Yet, obesity per se has received little attention in this literature. The present dissertation adds to the extant literature by examining links between socioemotional well-being and body weight across socioeconomic contexts. Specifically, the present dissertation provides three empirical papers using secondary analyses of large-scale longitudinal studies of children and adolescents to examine associations between sustained socioemotional competency and body weight. In each paper, the potential moderating role of socioeconomic risks and concerns for robustness across children’s racial/ethnic backgrounds are foci. Paper 1 estimated developmental trajectories of behavior problems from ages 5-6 to 13-14 and assessed whether body mass index (BMI) at ages 21-22 varied by behavior problem trajectory patterns, poverty status, and their interaction. Paper 2 identified self-control trajectories during elementary school, examined their impact on fifth-grade BMI, and explored whether the association between self-control trajectories and BMI differed by poverty status. Lastly, Paper 3 examined associations between self-control across the elementary school years and BMI at the end of elementary school, while allowing these associations by poverty dynamics and exposure to an accumulation of socioeconomic and contextual risks. Across three papers, all analyses were conducted for the entire sample and by racial/ethnic group. Results generally supported the protective role of socioemotional competency in preventing unhealthy body weight, regardless of socioeconomic risks. However, this relation was often less evident for children of color than for White children. These findings are interpreted with concern for the complex roles of disadvantage in children’s lives as pertains to social-emotional adjustment and body weight. The practical significance of the papers is focused on informing intervention efforts based on improved understandings of when, for whom, and under what conditions socioemotional competency is associated with health benefits, risks, or neither. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Need for Cognition is a personality trait that describes an individual’s inclination to seek out and enjoy cognitive effort. This disposition has been of interest to psychological research for multiple decades now, and findings show that it is related to more engagement in learning, higher self-efficacy, and higher academic achievements. However, it has long been established that effort is something that is generally avoided, so the individuals and scenarios which deviate from this general rule are of great interest to behavioural science. Finding out why effort is sought out, in which ways it is perceived differently, whether this is context-dependent, and what kind of consequences this has for everyday life—all these aspects are necessary to better understand individual differences in cognitive effort preference. This understanding has important implications for theoretical and practical applications, ranging from educational strategies and workplace dynamics to health interventions. Such interventions could maintain or increase well-being, a concept that encompasses several dimensions, including hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic well-being refers to the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, while eudaimonic well-being centres on the pursuit of meaning, personal growth, and self-fulfilment, which requires more effort. As an investment trait, it is therefore likely that Need for Cognition is related to the kind of activities that individuals engage in to increase their well-being. The goal of this thesis is to examine the role of Need for Cognition in well-being, to shed light on the specific relationship between these two constructs and the factors and mechanisms that might be involved in it. In Study 1, we reviewed over 140 studies on the association of Need for Cognition and various aspects of well-being, combining a qualitative literature review with nine meta-analyses. The meta-analyses yielded small to medium effects, showing that higher Need for Cognition was associated with reduced neuroticism, depression, anxiety, burnout, negative affect, and public self-consciousness, and increased positive affect, satisfaction, and private self-consciousness. Higher Need for Cognition fostered active, interest-driven behaviours, which enhanced knowledge acquisition, self-efficacy, and thereby self-confidence in dealing with academic, personal, and interpersonal challenges. However, under some circumstances, the impact of Need for Cognition on well-being appeared to be dependent on third variables such as self-control or the social environment. In other situations, Need for Cognition was associated with lower well-being, suggesting the possibility of a sense of overconfidence in one’s abilities and resources which leads to more noxious behaviours. This possibility of an overestimation of one’s own resources depending on Need for Cognition was further explored with preregistered analyses in Study 2 using questionnaire data from 180 teachers from the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. We first replicated an analysis of possible mediators between Need for Cognition and a reduced sense of personal efficacy, an aspect of burnout. Neither self-control, nor habitual use of reappraisal or suppression as an emotion regulation strategy reached significance as a mediator, which was not in line with the findings of Grass et al. (2018) in teacher trainees. When including the years of teaching experience in the model, self-control mediated between Need for Cognition and the sense of personal efficacy, suggesting that the mechanisms that in- or decrease a teacher’s burnout risk depend on the career stage. In a structural equation model we then found that teachers with higher Need for Cognition had lower burnout scores because they perceived their own resources as more fitting to their job’s demands and felt less overwhelmed by these demands, while the opposite pattern was associated with higher burnout scores. A sense of boredom in the form of one’s resources exceeding the demands was neither related to Need for Cognition nor to burnout scores. The perception of demands and resources fully mediated between Need for Cognition and burnout, indicating that dispositional cognitive effort investment has important protective effects for one’s sense of self-efficacy, but bears the risk of overestimating oneself nonetheless. In Study 3 we applied these practical insights to foundational research in a Registered Report, examining how Need for Cognition affects effort discounting behaviour. We adapted an existing effort discounting paradigm by Westbrook et al. (2013) to enable the computation of subjective values for different task levels without resorting to the objective effort for reference. Online questionnaires, an inlab working memory task with four difficulty levels, and the adapted paradigm were completed by 116 university students. We found that over a third of participants preferred a more difficult level over the easiest one, and that participants with higher Need for Cognition valued the most difficult level higher and the easiest level lower than participants with lower Need for Cognition did. The difficulty level itself and the accuracy of responses during the working memory task predicted the subjective values of the levels, while reaction time did not, a pattern that stayed consistent across 63 different data processing pipelines. An exploratory analysis showed that even though participants with higher Need for Cognition valued difficult levels higher and found them less aversive, there were no differences in subjective effort, reaction time, or accuracy compared to participants with low Need for Cognition, which further supported the possibility of overestimation. In conclusion, the findings of this thesis have advanced our understanding of the role of Need for Cognition in well-being. One of the main findings is the overestimation of one’s own resources in individuals with high Need for Cognition, which is facilitated by an increased level of self-control and self-efficacy beliefs. This self-perception is evident both in the workplace and in a basic research paradigm. It can be assumed that the inflated perception of own resources results from differences in the type of task engagement between individuals with higher and lower Need for Cognition. Those with higher Need for Cognition engage more frequently in actual tasks, which result in an increase in resources through skills and experience. More importantly, they engage much more frequently in hypothetical tasks, which result in a perceived increase in resources even though no actual skills were tested and no actual experience was gained. This task engagement pattern promotes a heightened but less accurate sense of self-efficacy in individuals with higher Need for Cognition. In the long term, this overestimation can have a negative impact on well-being but is offset by the predominantly positive associations of Need for Cognition with various aspects of well-being. Further research can now address the question of what influences this overestimation and how it can potentially be mitigated to derive implications for theory and practice. The data and analysis code from all three studies are openly available so that others can reproduce the results, explore patterns, or test new hypotheses.