AUTHOR=Chow Tak Sang , Hui Chin Ming , Siu Tiffany Sok U. 

TITLE=“It Is My Choice to Control Myself!”: Testing the Mediating Roles of Expectancy and Value in the Association Between Perceived Choice and Self-Control Success

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.851964

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.851964

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>Past research suggested that when individuals feel that it is their free choice to perform a task, they are more likely to succeed. However, little has been known about the effect of perceived choice of self-control and the psychological processes underlying the benefits of this perception in everyday contexts. To fill this gap, a 7-day experience sampling study (115 college students and 1,725 reported episodes of self-control) was conducted to test whether confidence in sustaining the current self-control activity (<italic>expectancy</italic>) and perceived value of current self-control (<italic>value</italic>) could mediate the link between perceived choice and success in the current self-control activity. The results of multilevel analysis suggested that the perceived choice can boost self-control success by increasing expectancy and value of self-control. These findings add mechanistic understanding of the effect of perceived choice on self-control success.</p>