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The Intensity of Behavioral Restraint: Determinants and Cardiovascular Correlates

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Handbook of Biobehavioral Approaches to Self-Regulation

Abstract

We sketch here an understanding of self-regulatory restraint and cardiovascular responses that may accompany it. The understanding represents an application of an integrative analysis that has long guided research in our laboratory and has distinctive implications relative to traditional self-regulation perspectives. One core idea is that restraint intensity varies proximally with the magnitude of the urge resisted—first rising and then falling, with the fall occurring where regulatory success appears impossible or excessively difficult given its importance. Another is that regulatory ability factors, including fatigue, have different influences on restraint intensity depending on the magnitude of an urge and the importance of resisting it. Cardiovascular responses accompanying self-regulatory restraint may be those associated with beta-adrenergic sympathetic nervous system activation. Direct evidence for this understanding is limited, but indirect evidence—from nonregulatory tests of the integrative analysis and its application—is abundant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311280, Denton, TX, 76203, USA

    Rex A. Wright PhD & Stephanie D. Agtarap MSc

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  1. Rex A. Wright PhD
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  2. Stephanie D. Agtarap MSc
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Correspondence to Rex A. Wright PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geneva Motivation Lab, FPSE Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland

    Guido H.E. Gendolla

  2. Department of Clinical Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Mattie Tops

  3. Department of Clinical Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Sander L. Koole

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Wright, R., Agtarap, S. (2015). The Intensity of Behavioral Restraint: Determinants and Cardiovascular Correlates. In: Gendolla, G., Tops, M., Koole, S. (eds) Handbook of Biobehavioral Approaches to Self-Regulation. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1236-0_19

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