epilogue: self-regulation, vulnerability, and implications for mental health
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Epilogue: Self-Regulation,Vulnerability, andImplications for MentalHealthCarolyn C. Morf & Walter MischelPublished online: 22 Sep 2010.
To cite this article: Carolyn C. Morf & Walter Mischel (2002) Epilogue: Self-Regulation, Vulnerability, and Implications for Mental Health, Self and Identity,1:2, 191-199, DOI: 10.1080/152988602317319384
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Epilogue: Self-Regulation, Vulnerability, andImplications for Mental Health
CAROLYN C. MORF
National Institute of Mental HealthBethesda, Maryland, USA
WALTER MISCHEL
Columbia UniversityNew York, New York, USA
The impressive range and diversity of the articles in this issue illustrate the multiplemeanings and breadth that the concept of ``self-regulation’’ has acquired. Of course,a two-day workshop cannot even attempt to cover the ®eld in any comprehensive orexhaustive way. Nevertheless, because the net was cast broadly to represent a rangeof perspectives, the present volume offers an excellent sampling of work on self-regulation by leading researchers. As indicated in the introduction, a major aim ofthe NIMH conference, and of this special issue, was to seek a more integrative,cumulative science approach for understanding self-regulation, especially its poten-tial impact on psychological health and vulnerability. Consequently, our goal in thesepages is to provide an integrative perspective on the contributions by highlightingmajor themes, and emphasizing potential connections and possibilities of integrationamong conceptually related research ®ndings and theorizing. We do so with an eyetowards how this work may contribute increasingly to mental health. While recog-nizing that future efforts will be needed to fully explore the potential translations tothe clinical arena, the time seems ripe to at least begin to outline the possibilities.
From the outset, the topic of self-regulation opens up a host of questions, bothabout the ``self ’’ that does the regulating and the nature and limits of the regulatoryprocesses that are subsumed. While these cannot be addressed in depth here, there isconsiderable consensusÐboth among the contributors to this volume and in thebroader ®eldÐthat the self in self-regulation is neither conceptualized simply as asynonym for the person (as agent), nor as a homunculus construct inside the personthat does the regulating. It is, instead, viewed as a psycho-social dynamic processingsystem. The speci®cs of the self-system are not the focus of this special issue, andhave been addressed elsewhere in detail (e.g., Hoyle, Kernis, Leary, & Baldwin, 1999;
Received 15 September, 2001; accepted 10 October, 2001.
The authors wish to thank Mark Leary for his generous editorial work and comments on earlier
drafts of this paper. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect official views of the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institutes of Health, or any
other branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Address correspondence concerning this article to Carolyn C. Morf, National Institute of Mental
Health, 6001 Executive Blvd., Room 7216, MSC 9651, Bethesda, MD 20892-9651 .
E-mail: [email protected]
Self and Identity, 1: 191±199, 2002
Copyright # 2002 Psychology Press
1529-8868 /2002 $12.00 + .00
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Mischel & Morf, in press). We therefore here note only two central features of thisself-system.
First, it is a dynamic system in the sense that it serves particular psychological``regulatory’’ functions of importance for adequate coping in the social world. Thus,it is a motivated system with a coherent organization of cognitive-affective repre-sentations that carry out the self-regulatory functions both at automatic and moreeffortful levels. Notable among the self-regulatory functions, because of their clearimplications for mental health, are self-evaluation, psychological self-protection anddefense against excessive stress and anxiety, and the preservation and enhancementof self-esteem and identity (e.g., Crocker, 2002; Leary, 2002; Strauman, 2002).Although these processes may operate automatically, effortful control is invokedwhen necessary to override impulsive automatic responses that may impede animportant self-regulatory goal (e.g., Baumeister, 2002; Derryberry, 2002; Eisenberg,Spinrad, & Morris, 2002; Mischel & Ayduk, 2002). Executive processes involved inself-control (e.g., planning, interpreting, processing, and monitoring of behavior andinformation) function with at least some degree of conscious self-awareness. In turnthey depend on the capacity for reasoned self-re¯ection, but they also often come tooperate partly at automatic levels that may only occasionally require consciousattention (e.g., Bargh, 1997). Second, the self-system is a social-interpersonal system:it develops from infancy onward within social relationships (e.g., Andersen, Chen, &Miranda, 2002), and its self-regulatory functions are carried out largely within, andare sustained by, interpersonal contexts and goals throughout life. The self is notonly constructed within its relations to signi®cant other individuals, but also ingroups, and collectivities that become important for the self-concepts and identitythat are formed (e.g., Cantor, Kemmelmeier, Basten, & Prentice, 2002; Tesser, 2002).
Implicit in the above is that self-regulation invariably involves tradeoffs anddelicate balancing between competing self-regulatory goals. On the one side in thesecon¯icts are the short-term interests within pressures of the moment, such asimmediate reduction of anxiety and various types of self-defense in response tofrustrations, threats, and stresses. On the other, are long-term concerns that involvepreservation of valued goals by attention to the delayed consequences of impulsiveand uncontrolled behaviors which would ultimately undo those goals. Especiallyimportant for many overarching self-goals is the maintenance of important rela-tionships that are easily threatened by impulsive and ``sel®sh’’ responses toimmediate stressors and temptations (e.g., Fiske, 2002). How con¯icts betweenshort-term immediate demands of the present situation and the longer-term goals ofthe individual become resolved and balanced has major implication for mentalhealth. Most of the papers in this volume deal in one way or another with this issue.
Self-Control in Self-Regulation
Self-control, is a particularly basic aspect of self-regulation, in which dominantresponses (e.g., surrendering to momentary salient ``hot’’ temptationÐas when theangered person responds abusively to the partner) are inhibited at the stimulus level(e.g., by transforming the stimulus or distracting attention from it). This processmakes possible the enactment of less readily accessible subdominant responses, thatare more appropriate for the long-term well-being and goals of the person (e.g.,preservation of self-esteem and important relationships). This de®nition makesapparent that the ability to self-control, and the motivation to do so when appro-priate, are foundations, if not pre-requisites, for adaptive social, emotional and
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cognitive functioning. Conversely, the extremes of self-control, either by its lack(``under control’’) or by its excessive use (``over control’’), will be maladaptive forpsychological health and associated empirically with diverse negative outcomes (e.g.,Eisenberg et al., 2002). The ultimate goal of applying insights from basic ®ndings onself-control for prevention and therapeutic interventions, however, requires that we®rst understand the mechanisms that enable effective self-control. Fortunately,progress on this front has been encouraging, as seen in these contributions that speakdirectly to the determinants of self-control as well as to its consequences for adap-tation and mental health.
At a broad level, self-control is multiply determined by interactions amongtemperamental-biologica l and motivational psycho-social factors. It is generallyconsidered to be at least in part a volitional or intentional executive function (e.g.,Derryberry, 2002; Mischel & Ayduk, 2002), and it is effortful (e.g., Eisenberg et al.,2002). Further, self-control crucially depends on the availability of the necessarycompetencies that allow the individual to overcome dominant response tendenciesand to generate alternative responses. As noted in the papers by Derryberry (2002)and by Mischel and Ayduk (2002), these competencies involve the ability to stra-tegically re-focus attention (e.g., via self-distraction and attentional shifting). Theseattentional shifts can take different forms, for example, via changes in the focus ofattention perceptually to other stimuli (Derryberry, 2002), or via modi®cations inhow the same event is cognitively framed (Mischel & Ayduk, 2002), but in eithercase, these operations are in the service of inhibiting and overcoming the initiallydominant response and immediate ``stimulus pull.’’ To the degree that the individualhas developed the requisite competencies, he or she makes it possible for the self-controlled to substitute more adaptive alternative reactions driven by higher-ordergoals.
Whether or not these attention control competencies are activated effectivelydepends on a host of motivational, cognitive, and emotional-temperamenta l factorsthat interact within the larger self-system (Mischel & Morf, in press). Furthermore, itdepends on the individual’s ability to prevent against temporary depletion duringconsecutive or continuous efforts. Baumeister’s (2002) work suggests that self-con-trol is potentially a limited resource: volition has its costs and even seemingly minoracts of choice and control exert their toll to render subsequent self-control efforts lesssuccessful. According to Baumeister (2002), this can be counteracted by conservingresources, or by facilitating replenishment through rest and positive affect.
To date, most research on self-control has focused on essentially normalpopulations. But, as already seen in several of these contributions, the extremes ofover and under control map on to distinctive types of mental and social-emotionaldisorders, potentially ranging from the inhibited, fearful, avoidant, depressive on oneend to the over-impulsive, aggressive ``externalizers’’ at the other end. For example,Derryberry (2002) outlines some of the speci®c interactions that may be expectedbetween the individual’s attentional capacities and various personal vulnerabilities,such as overall levels of impulsivity and trait anxiety. As he notes, these controlstrategies may vary systematically in the type of information selected as well as in thespeci®c combinations and sequences of facilitation and inhibition that unfold.
It is encouraging to see that even when people have high levels of trait vulner-ability, as in chronic high anxiety, the availability of good control strategies enablesmore ¯exible and positive, adaptive coping (Derryberry, 2002). These more maturestrategies allow the person to go beyond simple disengagement or inhibition inresponse to threat and to access more positive concepts and alternatives for coping.
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They also may facilitate the type of proactive, rather than merely reactive, emotionregulation that Eisenberg et al. (2002) noteÐa point that merits further exploration.Consistent with this work, is the ®nding that effective attention control strategiesvisible in toddlerhood and preschool can serve as signi®cant protective factorsagainst the long-term negative consequences of dispositional vulnerabilities such asexcessive sensitivity to rejection (Mischel & Ayduk, 2002). Thus, relatively stableindividual differences in self-control competencies and in attention control strategiesthat become visible early in life are linked predictably to a variety of adaptive andmaladaptive outcomes later in life.
It is therefore timely, as these contributions suggest, for researchers to address indepth the links between speci®c types of self-control problems and impulse disordersof major clinical importance (e.g., ADHD). We should note that although we havebeen discussing self-control as if it were a unitary construct, control takes multipleforms that differ both in their psychological meaning and in their implications foradaptation and mental health, as constructively discussed and clari®ed by Eisenbergand colleagues. Nevertheless, the ®rst four papers converge in their implications formental health concerns. Optimal levels of control and self-regulation are char-acterized by ¯exibility and thus also by discriminativeness: they contrast with theextremes of generalized over-control or under-control which virtually by de®nitionare rigid and maladaptive. Clearly the further in-depth explorations of these con-nections and the speci®c underlying mechanisms provide a major challenge for futureresearch that can be highly consequential for prevention and treatment of diversemental health problems. It has potential implications for both assessment anddiagnostic procedures and for the genesis of new treatment-intervention possibilities.
Self-Regulatory Processes in the Larger Self-System and its Social Context
As we saw, adaptive self-control involves selective (strategic) restructuring of per-ceptual, cognitive and motivational processes to allow refocusing of attention, andwhen executed effectively, it enables putting short-term goals aside in favor ofpursuing longer-term goals. The remaining papers in this issue take this self-regulatory problem further by focusing on some of the key inter-relations amongregulatory processes within the larger self-system, and on the reciprocal interactionsbetween the system and the social context. In essence self-regulatory dynamics arethe ``normal’’ operations of the self-system aimed not only at de®ning the self as adistinctive entity with its own identity, but importantly also the regulatory processesinvolving self-evaluation, self-protection, and self-enhancement aimed at maintain-ing and protecting a positive self-view. Thus, self-regulatory dynamics re¯ect, andare driven by, the multiple goals of the system and the host of diverse demands andaffordances that are continuously encountered and generated in the social world. Themultiple goals pursued often con¯ict, and the over-arching task in self-regulation isto negotiate among con¯icting goals. The resulting costs and bene®ts are highlyconsequential for the individual’s well-being, interpersonal and social relationships,and mental health.
Costs and Bene®ts of Self-Protection and Self-Enhancement
The contributions by Leary (2002), Cantor et al. (2002), and Strauman (2002)illustrate various processes by which the inherent normal operations of the self thatperform valuable functions for the self-system, also have the potential to set people
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up for vulnerabilities and interpersonal problems. Leary, for example, going beyondsimply concentrating on the cognitive and motivational aspects of inherent self-processes, such as egocentrism, egotism, and self-esteem protection, addresses theirinterpersonal costs. In a sense, his analysis offers a contemporary reinterpretation ofego defenses and their substantial long-term toll, cast in the regulatory dynamics ofthe self-system.
Much more than a change in preferred language, in this reinterpretation, Learyrepresents people’s ability to consciously re¯ect on how they relate to others as adouble-edged sword with gains and costs for interpersonal relationships. Forexample, in the degree to which the self is differentiated from others, excessiveness ineither direction can have maladaptive social and mental health consequences. In onedirection, excessive empathy and enmeshment may lead to overdependency ; in theother direction, virtually complete differentiation may contribute to sel®shness,excessive indifference, and potential aggressiveness toward the other person or group(e.g., in prejudice). In the same vein, the inherent egocentricity of the self makes usbelieve our perceptions of the world are more accurate than those of other peopleand prevents us from seeing our biases. In part, egocentrism and egotism may re¯ectthe consequences of protecting the ``symbolic’’ self by shielding oneself to protectself-esteem and treasured self-images, with the cost of undoing the long-term rela-tionships on which the self-system is dependent. The costs can be formidable, asmanifested pervasively in relational dif®culties and failuresÐfrom marital con¯ictsand breakdown to disputes and broader violence. To reduce these costs, one needs toshift or refocus attention away from excessive egocentric sel®shness and self-absorption to other people and their concerns. With that goal, the challenge becomesunderstanding how the often automatic self-enhancement and protective processesthat are disadvantageou s for relationship enhancement can be controlled and con-structively modi®ed by deliberate control processes or other therapeutic and edu-cational interventions.
Crocker’s (2002) work examining the domains in which people are especiallyinvested, and thus are likely to be particularly vulnerable psychologically, makesclear why it is so dif®cult to disengage from automatically activated self-defenseprocesses. In the process of self-construction, contingencies of self-worth develop,and people stake their self-esteem on ful®lling theseÐsometimes impossible andimaginaryÐcontingencies and standards. Common examples in North Americanculture include such qualities as athletic skills, accomplishments, appearance, goodworks, and wealth. Crocker traces both the regulatory functions of these con-tingencies of self-worth and their potentially pernicious psychological consequences,thus further documenting the mix of gains and risks produced by the operations ofthe self-system. On the positive side, the development of these contingencies may bean important, perhaps inevitable, route for de®ning oneself and important values,goals and standards for self-evaluation, providing directionality for behavioralchoices. On the negative side, individuals are vulnerable to signi®cant ¯uctuations inself-esteem in relation to successes and failures when they occur in these domains ofcontingencyЯuctuations that are associated with such severe problems as depres-sion. It is important to note that Crocker’s data suggest the key problem is not thenumber of contingencies, but the type. For example, decreases in self-esteem andlater depression in response to rejections from graduate programs was mediated onlyby the contingency of school competency, but not by other types of contingencies.
Clearly, perceived failures to meet contingencies of self-worth may havedestructive effects on mental health and well-being, and there is a need for future
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research to ¯esh out these connections in more speci®city. Crocker’s conclusions andbasic message resonate with Leary’s: it is important to shift attention away fromegocentric preoccupation with the automatic protection of self-perceived worth andinstead to connect the self to other people in caring, meaningful and compassionateways to develop authentic relations with them. One possible future challenge will beto ask: how can basic attention control strategies, as seen in the self-control section,be applied to help meet that need? Again the answers ultimately are likely to havedirect relevance to diagnostic, therapeutic, and educational issues central for mentalhealth.
Strauman’s tour de force sweeps across even more diverse levels of analysisÐfrom the self-system to the brain to the behavior systemÐto explore disorders ofself-regulation, speci®cally focusing on depression. His reconceptualization isunique in adding the regulatory goals and processes of the self-system to theexisting brain=behavior system explanation of depression. Substantively, theapproach recasts approach and avoidance motivation in goal pursuit in terms ofpromotion and prevention systems (Higgins, 1997), viewing depression as a cumu-lative failure of the promotion (approach) system. His analysis takes account ofthe higher-order cognitive processes and the complex self-regulatory systems inhumans in which emotion, motivation, and cognition re¯ect the goal-orientedactivity of the system as a whole, operating concurrently and interacting with eachother at multiple levels. These span from the neural (CNS) level to cognitiveinformation processing, to the level of goals, intentions, and beliefs about the self.This approach allows testable hypotheses and predictions regarding the speci®cways in which self-regulation can link to depression at multiple levels of analysis,and the studies he reports suggest therapeutic implications that illustrate the utilityof such a multi-level approach. Notably, activating self-regulatory cognitionsseems to alter physiological responses associated distinctively with the promotionor the prevention system. If such ®ndings prove robust, translations to treatmentresearch to selectively in¯uence the role of each system in goal pursuit may becomefeasible.
Constraints and A� ordances of the Social Context
We turn now away from the discussion of the consequences of inherent self-processes,to the last four contributions that examine the constraints imposed, as well as theaffordances and opportunities offered by the social context on the formation andoperation of the self-system. The work by Andersen and colleagues illustrates thefundamentally interpersonal nature of the self-system: The signi®cant others withwhom we become entangledÐbeginning in the caretaker relationships of infancyÐcumulatively become part of our personal identity and self-de®nition. Consequentlythe signi®cant relationships formed in earlier development constrain relationalpossibilities in the future. When new persons resemble signi®cant others we haveknown, even if only through super®cial surface features, similar mental repre-sentations and emotions are activated in the new context. This also activates auto-matically our expectations about likely interactions with them, and the behaviorpatterns and self-regulatory dynamics that become elicited in subsequent relationswith themÐoften in ways that undermine the qualities and potential of the newrelations. In short, the relationships that can develop, and their probable fate, areimportantly in¯uenced by similarities of new ``others’’ to previous psychologicallysigni®cant ®gures.
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The vulnerabilities and costs that arise can be severe, especially when pastrelationships have been mostly negative and maladaptive, and have left the personwithout positive, benign models of self-other relations that can serve as constructivefuture guides. As these authors discuss, there are many questions to explore here:when and how might individuals bend and adapt to and accept problematic featuresof the other (the perceived ¯aws in otherwise benign people); when and how shouldthey attempt to change the self, or to exit the relationship (e.g., in abusive situations).Increasing self-awareness of the typical patterns that become elicited when negativetransference is experienced can enable individuals to become vigilant to the cues thatset them into motion, so as to be able to inhibit the automatic responses and practiceresponding differently. The activation of the types of optimal self-control strategiesfor ``cooling’’ automatic impulsive reactions may again prove to be useful, but thoseconnections remain to be explored.
From an anthropological perspective, provided by Fiske, the socializing role ofemotions, particularly moral emotions such as guilt and fear, are seen as crucial forcivilized behavior. These emotions provide rapid affective information mobilizingconcerns for delayed consequences such as the potentially destructive effects oftransgressions on important long-term relations, that help people overcome theimpulsive sel®sh, self-protective, and self-indulgent behaviors that are otherwisesupported by the heuristics and biases inherent in social cognition. They thus guidethe kinds of behaviors essential for sustaining relationships that are adaptivelyimportant in the person’s social world. Hence Fiske’s essay makes a strong case forthe importance of emotions for enabling self-controlÐwithout emotions, commit-ments to sustain relationships would evaporate and there would be little support formoral social behavior.
From a mental health perspective, however, the regulatory role of emotions alsohas substantial costsÐmuch of the malaise from depression through countless otherforms of maladaptive coping and emotional distress, is linked to excesses in theexperience of such negative emotions as guilt, shame, and anxiety (e.g., Tangney,2001). Moreover, these ``hot’’ emotions can undermine rational thinking, planningand thoughtful concern with consequences, values and long-term goals that also arecrucial for empathic and caring interpersonal behavior. The adaptive value of theemotions coexists with their maladaptive consequences: optimal adaptation hingeson an appropriate if still somewhat mysterious balancing act within the system, andlikely on the appropriate interactions between the emotional and the cognitive sys-tems operating as a wholeÐa common theme that unites virtually all of the papers.As in the other papers in this special issue, identi®cation of the optimal levels andfurther clari®cation of the mechanisms for attaining them become the next task.
The socially ``constructive’’ aspects of the self-system, are seen in the ®nal twopapers (Cantor et al., 2002; Tesser, 2002) which both articulate the characteristics ofthe self and the processes through which it is constructed in relation to the affor-dances of the social environment. Cantor and colleagues see this interaction as aninterplay between the evolving goals of the self and cultural affordances, both ininterpersonal and group contexts. They focus on this process as it unfolds in thetransition from home and high school to college life and the new life tasks that takeshape in the context of campus groups. Two closely related goals seem to motivatethe interactions between self and social environment that emerge in this context. Onedeals with ``®nding oneself’’ and further constructing and ¯eshing out one’s self-de®nitions and identity in the new setting. The other involves the search to ®nd one’splace in the new social context, particularly as seen through the student’s selection
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and participation in different groups and activities. The ®ndings help to specify theconditions that enable healthy social self-de®nition and that characterize resilienceand personal well-being as the self is constructed. Namely, optimal self-regulationrequires the facility to read discriminatively the affordances and possibilitiesencountered, and to use them in ways that ®t one’s personal goals and values. Thus,they further contribute to the consensus conclusions, that it is ¯exibility, moderation,and a caring connectedness with others that de®nes a healthy social self-de®nition.
Similarly, Tesser discusses how the evolving self-system throughout the lifecourse builds its unique niches of relationships and commitments. He proposes a bio-social processing framework, conceptualized broadly in terms of PDP networks,which takes explicit account of the biological-genetic, as well as the social aspects ofthe self-system. The niche-building process involves the inter-play and balancing actsof these aspects in self-construction processes as the system attempts to satisfy itsmultiple constraints (e.g., abilities, temperament, goals), when faced with life’sopportunities and challenges. With regard to its ``less resistant self attributes,’ ’ theself-system readily assimilates and re¯ects the social environment; but attributes thathave high heritability, according to Tesser, are more resistant. In this case, indivi-duals try to alter their personal environments in ways that better afford theexpressions of these characteristicsÐof course, some accommodations are morepossible than others. Thus, the goodness of ®t in¯uences the selection of the rela-tionships and niches that form, and the degree to which outcomes are optimaldepends on what compromises were possible to satisfy the various aspects of the self-system. As Tesser recognizes, his provocative prediction that niche-building is drivento afford the expression of the more heritable aspects of the self, awaits much furtherempirical research. However, there is increasing consensus in the idea that tounderstand how the self operates requires a model of the self as a processing systemin continuous interaction with the social world. The speci®c nature of that model,and the ways in which the system functions, are likely to constitute much of theresearch agenda for years to come (e.g., Hoyle et al., 1999; Mischel & Morf, 2002).
Conclusions for Mental Health
Mental health implications were evident and discussed throughout; here we simplyrecapitulate the main consensus points. Adaptive self-regulation and resilience are¯exible and discriminative in the sense that it takes exquisite account of the affor-dances and constraints both from the speci®c context and circumstances, and fromthe accessible goals, competencies and preferences of the individual. It requiresdelicate balances and trade-offs between the impulses of the moment (including self-protection and enhancement) and the long-term costs and gains to the self, especiallythose emanating from its social context. A requisite are self-control competenciesthat allow the individual to shift attention in ways that in¯uence moment-by-moment the perceptions, cognitions, and emotions that are accessed and experiencedin the service of effective goal pursuit and adaptation. Just how these self-controlprocesses are linked to other aspects of the self-system, and to different types ofdisorder and mental illness will be an urgent task for future research. Anotherchallenge that seems equally important, is to better understand how people cometo attach value to certain aspects of themselves (as in self-contingencies) and thedegree to which maladaptive goals may be replaced with more adaptive ones. Whentackling the translation of self-regulation principles to potential interventions and
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educational efforts, it is important to understand that what is optimal for an indi-vidual may be more a matter of ``goodness of ®t’’ among multiple factors andconsiderations within the total system, rather than of generalized all-purpose for-mulae or prescriptions that can be uniformly applied.
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