14 DAY TRIAL // In a paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of Consumer Science, researchers Claudia Townsend and Wendy Liu argue that a lack of confidence in their own abilities makes many people incapable of complete self-control.
A poor self-image is directly tied to this lack of confidence, and both aspects contribute to making it harder for people to figure out how to better control their emotions and impulses. This ultimately leads to a type of emotional distress that may decrease the quality of life for these people.
Apparently, this line of reasoning is valid for a wide array of activities, ranging from planning a diet to saving money in the bank. Self-control cannot be achieved in any of these regards if people do not feel good about themselves, or at least accept themselves, beforehand.
Not trusting that you can achieve the goals you set for yourself will make it extremely difficult to do so, and will further contribute to the aforementioned emotional distress, PsychCentral reports.
“Although planning tends to aid subsequent self-control for those who are in good standing with respect to their long-term goal, those who perceive themselves to be in poor goal standing are found to exert less self-control after planning than in the absence of planning,” the two experts say.
The team conducted a series of five scientific studies on this issue. In some of them, a number of participants were asked to plan their diets and food intake for a day, while others were not asked to do so. After the conditioning, scientists offered everyone a snack.
“What we found was among respondents who felt good about their weight, planning led to healthier choices – choice of the healthier snack in the first case or no snack in the second choice,” Townsend and Liu explain.
“However, the surprising result was that among respondents who did not feel good about their weight (considered themselves overweight), those who planned were actually more likely to select the unhealthy snack in the first case or cookies in the second case,” they add.
Such a behavior was unexpected. However, researchers noticed that it also extends to financial planning as well. This could have significant implications for understanding how people react to economic problems, and could also indicate potential solutions to address them.
“Generally, people assume that planning will help for goal attainment. But this research suggests that having a positive self-view is just as important, if not more so,” the research team concludes.