14 DAY TRIAL // Self-control should be perceived as a psychological resource, say investigators from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), in Australia. What this implies is that it can be both depleted and replenished. At the same time, the team found that higher levels of self-control reduce aggression.
Many people have problems managing their aggressive behaviors simply because they lack the self-control necessary to do so. By working on this front, they may become capable of displaying less aggression, on average, investigators opine.
Experts say that practice makes perfect even when it comes to self-control. In other words, those who want to achieve it need to spend some time doing so. Data collected by both criminologists and sociologists indicate that a large number of violent crimes occur out of lack of self-control.
When the opportunity presents itself, individuals in this situation also experience a great deal of impulsivity, which ultimately drives them to commit regrettable acts, PsychCentral reports.
“It’s an impulsive kind of thing,” explains UNSW senior lecturer and psychological scientist Dr. Thomas F. Denson, who was a coauthor of the new investigation. During a recent series of experiments, he and his colleagues manipulated participants' self-control.
One of the tasks involved was to have people use their non-dominant hand for as many activities as possible. “Using the mouse, stirring your coffee, opening doors. This requires people to practice self-control because their habitual tendency is to use their dominant hands,” Denson explains.
The research team found that individuals who were asked to do this for about two weeks were more likely to be capable of exerting self-control, and managing their aggression, than participants in a control group.
“I think, for me, the most interesting findings that have come out of this is that if you give aggressive people the opportunity to improve their self-control, they’re less aggressive,” the team leader explains.
Self-control skills can definitely be improved with practice, the research team says. Experts argue that aggressive individuals simply exhibit deficiencies in exerting self-control over their own actions.
Details of the new work were published in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal edited by the Association for Psychological Science.
The new study shows that “it might be possible to teach people who struggle with anger or violence problems to control themselves more easily,” Denson concludes.