Tess Ruppert Essays - Psychology, Neuroscience, Motivation, Self

Tess Ruppert Mr. Owens Psychology 12-2 31 August 2017 Self-Control Do you know what Self-Control is? Self- Control is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, In the face of temptations, and impulses. S elf-Control is a good thing because it can teach people to grow up into better adults in society. If we are being controlled, we end up achieving longer term goals. Not only are we influenced by our surroundings but self-control is also influenced by another brain region. As we are younger we don't know too much so we end up using the five senses to test what works for us and what doesn't work. Self-control is a matter of disciplining yourself. Many people have self-control problems. So scientists test to see how much self-control people have. In Some countries doctors test children and see if they'll give into temptation by using the five senses. Doctors use the most common test called the Marshmallow test. This test was done in the 1960's, this test illustrates the war between impulsivity and self-control. The children who are the test objects are sat in a room and the doctor sits them in a chair and the doctor tells them they can wait to eat the marshmallow or they can eat it now. If they choose to wait 15 minutes they earn another marshmallow. This test shows children between what they're desires are and focusing on their longer term goals. Children who can reach this goal tend to have better lifestyles. These children end up having higher SAT scores, higher levels of education, better social skills, lowers drug use, fewer relationship problems, and less stress. In dividuals who tend to have self-control tend to have better grades, social skills, lower risk of depression, they eat better, and smoke less. Learning to have self- control leads to having better self-management in every aspect of life and they continue to pass that down to their offspring and for future generations. People believe that self-control is limited and it is called ego depletion. If you tend to use a lot of it now, you won't have that much for in the future for your future self. Studies have shown if a task depletes self- control can have a negative influence on later or unrelated tasks. We learn that by having self- control in one area can influence other areas of life and strengthen them. One way to implant self- control is your environment. Don't keep practicing your unhealthy habits and practice better ones instead. Another way is to operant conditioning. This helps increase the likelihood of a certain behavior that will occur by reinforcing the behaviors. Remember t o reward yourself every time you make a better decision because it shows you, you can have a better self-management. (Ed Youg. Self- Control is just empathy with your future self.) Self- control may seem like it's a bad thing when there are actually many benefits to having self-control. It increases decision making capacity, after making a decision it becomes more difficult. When we practice self- control it becomes easier to make decisions because our minds switch to simpler processes. It also increases chance of success, when self- control was measured against talent over time the ones that practiced grit rather than relying on talent came out as more successful. Also self-control can help us curtail impulsive behaviors, most people can't help but lie and those have low self-control are more likely to succumb to the impulse. It helps improve focus, we focus our energies on the task at hand and tune out distractions which make sure we perform to the best of our abilities. Focus allows us to kick those negative thoughts out of our head, a major impediment to long term success. Another thing to benefit from self-control is it's more likely to get rich. A study was recently conducted in New Zealand shadowed 1,000 children over the course of 30 years. Those who had high levels of self-control went on to land income jobs and had low levels of addiction. Only 10 percent of children with developed discipline were in low income jobs as opposed to over 30 percent of those with poor disci