Carvalho, Carnegie Mellon University, UNITED STATES (2022) Self-control and SAT outcomes: Evidence from two national field studies. Compared to willpower, strategic self-control may be especially beneficial in facilitating the pursuit of goals in high-stakes, real-world situations.Ĭitation: Baldwin CR, Haimovitz K, Shankar P, Gallop R, Yeager D, Gross JJ, et al. These results were confirmed in Study 2, a preregistered replication with N = 14,259 high school students. Mediation analyses suggest that the benefits of self-control strategies to SAT scores was fully explained by increased practice time. Consistent with dose-response curves in other domains, there were positive albeit diminishing marginal returns to additional strategies. Additionally, the more self-control strategies students deployed, the higher their SAT scores. In Study 1 ( N = 5,563), compared to willpower, strategic self-control predicted more hours of SAT practice and higher SAT scores, even when controlling for prior PSAT scores. In collaboration with the College Board, we surveyed two national samples of high school students about how they motivated themselves to study for the SAT college admission exam. To date, field research is lacking that compares the efficacy of willpower to strategic self-control for consequential and objectively measured real-world outcomes. However, research has also identified more strategic approaches to self-control that require less effort than willpower. Thus, the present findings indicate that self-control can be adequately captured with the single item measure presented here, thereby extending the methodological toolbox of self-control researchers by a highly-time efficient measure.Self-control is often thought to be synonymous with willpower, defined as the direct modulation of impulses in order to do what is best in the long-run. Network psychometrics further revealed that the single item was part of the self-control subnetwork and clearly distinguishable from boredom and if-then planning, which together with self-control form a larger psychometric network of psychological dispositions that are relevant for orienting goal directed behavior. In a high-powered (N = 1553) study with paid online workers from the US (gender: 47.3% female, 51.7% male, 1% other age: 40.36 ± 12.65 years), we found evidence for the convergent validity (Brief Self-Control Scale), divergent validity (Short Boredom Proneness Scale and If-Then Planning Scale), and criterion validity (objective and subjective socio-economic status) of the single item measure of self-control (“How much self-control do you have?”). Here, we address this gap by reporting the psychometric properties of a single item measure of self-control and by assessing its localization within a larger theorized psychometric network consisting of self-control, boredom and if-then planning.
However, such a measure has not yet been developed and tested.
To further facilitate self-control research, especially in conditions where time-constraints might render the use of multi-item measures of self-control problematic, a validated time-efficient single item measure would be an asset. Self-control is a highly adaptive human capacity and research on self-control is booming.
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