Impulse Control Disorders- Psych 188

Front 1

Two categories of self-regulation failure

Back 1

A. Underregulation:
B. Misregulation:

Front 2

failure to exert control over oneself

Back 2

Underregulation:

Front 3

exerting control in a way that fails to bring about the desired
result

Back 3

Misregulation:

Front 4

Basic Ingredients of self-regulation failure:

Back 4

Not engaging in active efforts of selfregulation

Front 5

Lack of or Conflicting Standards (3 types)

Back 5

1. Complete lack of standards
2. Multiple standards that are in conflict or otherwise incompatible
a. Conflicting goals lead to one becoming unable to manage oneself
b. Leads to paralysis, confusion, and dysfunctional behavioral patterns
3. False consensus effect
a. Overestimation of number of people involved in a behavior
b. Examples: cigarette smokers and gamblers

Front 6

Reduction of monitoring-

Back 6

Monitoring is evaluating self and action against
relevant standards

Front 7

a. Loss of self-awareness; loss of monitoring of self
b. People cease to attend to what they are doing and cease to evaluate
their actions against their own personal standards
c. Behavior may reflect impulses and feeling that would normally be in
check
d. “Lynch mob” mentality

Back 7

De-individualization

Front 8

a. Stimuli capturing attention and generating psychological reactions,
such as impulses and desires
b. Attending to the relevant stimulus and managing attention are the
most common and most effective techniques of self-regulation
c. Best strategy may be to avoid temptation rather than resist it

Back 8

Renegade Attention

Front 9

a. Inability to see beyond the immediate stimulus environment
i. Transcendence facilitates self-regulation
ii. Most likely mechanism of failure would involve cognitive shifts
that reject meaningful patterns of thought in favor of attending to
immediate concrete stimuli
b. To escape from emotional distress, people may shift toward more
immediate and less meaningful styles of thinking

Back 9

Transcendence Failure

Front 10

... is the power of the self-regulatory mechanism
to interrupt that response (impulse) and prevent action
1. The inability to make oneself conform to the relevant standard
2. Self-stopping- involvement of both mental and physical
override and impulse, habit, or tendency

Back 10

Inadequate Strength

Front 11

a. Chronic weakness
i. Person is weak or lacks will power
ii. Person lacks ego control- unable to control impulses, wishes,
desires
iii. Person is very susceptible to peer pressure
b. Temporary weakness
i. Depletion of strength
ii. Strength is a managed resource
iii. Negative affective state
c. Externally-mediated weakness
i. Impulse is extremely strong
ii. Unlimited access (shopping, internet, “all you can eat” buffet)

Back 11

Three main reasons for inadequate strength

Front 12

The longer someone is doing something, the more
difficult it may be to get them to stop

Back 12

Psychological Inertia-

Front 13

a. Difficult to interrupt a response sequence in the middle
b. Self-regulation is most effective when it overrides a response as
early as possible
c. Examples include binge eating, illicit sex

Back 13

Zeigarnik effect

Front 14

Engaging in active efforts of self-regulation but to do so in a way
that is nonoptimal and counterproductive; essence of misregulation is that the
subject tries to engage in self-regulation and knows what effect is wanted, but
the regulatory methods produce the wrong effect.

Back 14

Misregulation-

Front 15

Assumption that what works for one problem will
work for another
a. People feel better indulging in drugs, but some drugs can narrow
attention, so the subject ends up focusing on the problem and feeling
worse
b. When depressed individuals drink heavily, they end up feeling more
depressed

Back 15

Overgeneralization:

Front 16

Deficiency in knowledge, especially in self-knowledge (3 types)

Back 16

1.Overgeneralization 2.Exaggerated beliefs or attitudes 3. Cultural beliefs

Front 17

Lapse-activated causal
patterns: an initial lapse is quickly followed by a large-scale indulgence, or the
process by which first lapse in self-regulation can “snowball” into a major
binge and spiraling distress; “rolling the snowball” is equivalent to a lapseactivated
causal pattern.

Back 17

Time course and development of self-regulation failure-

Front 18

1. “Just Say No” strategy has value if it works
2. Violation of “Just Say No” strategy may increase the likelihood of a
major binge because can apply an immense amount of guilt to a minor
lapse and thus may lead to further self-regulation failure

Back 18

Zero tolerance beliefs

Front 19

1. Zero tolerance beliefs change the meaning and significance of a
violation of abstinence
2. Initial lapse causes emotional distress
3. Initial lapse lead to pleasure, joy, or relaxation
4. Spiraling distress- A combination of underregulation and misregulation
can lead to a vicious cycle where each violations of one’s standards
brings negative affect, which makes it unpleasant to be self-aware, so the
person avoids monitoring his or her own behavior, which makes further
violations possible

Back 19

Abstinence Violation Effects