The Role of Attention in Self-Regulation

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目探讨情境因素与个体心理过程在情绪和行为自我调节中的交互作用。从暴饮暴食到过度愤怒，许多身心健康不良的根源都有一个共同的主题：个人无法控制自己的行为。这项研究的目的是解释为什么人们经常在自我调节方面失败，以及他们如何才能成功。根据本文的分析，自我调节通常需要大量的精神资源。当这些资源在某种程度上受到限制时，结果就是一种我们称之为注意力短视的状态，在这种状态下，个体只能关注最显著的内部和外部线索，而忽略了更多的远端刺激。他们随后的行为很可能受到这些中心线索几乎唯一的动机影响。当显著的内部或情境线索有助于促进问题行为时，这种注意力变窄状态预计会导致去抑制行为，而当这些线索暗示约束时，这种行为抑制会增强。本研究的具体目的包括：(1)研究注意力近视模型在现实环境中的生态效度；(2)研究注意力能力的动态变化如何导致自我调节能力的改变；(3)研究情境因素和人格因素对个体注意窄化对自我调节的影响；(4)设计和实施基于实验室的新型干预措施，以提高个体的自我控制能力；(5)进行实地研究，测试改变吸烟者和超重节食者不健康行为的方法。该方法涵盖了个体和环境的病理来源，并对各种健康相关领域的行为控制产生影响。该项目的最终目标是记录自我调节的不适应来源，并确定在对个人心理健康和身体健康至关重要的领域导致成功自我控制的因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project explores the interacting role played by situational factors and individual mental processes in the self-regulation of emotions and behavior. From binge eating to excessive anger, many sources of adverse physical and mental health share a common theme: the inability of individuals to control their own behavior. The goal of this research is to explain why individuals often fail at self-regulation and how they can succeed. According to the analysis presented here, self-regulation typically demands a significant expenditure of mental resources. When those resources are limited in some fashion, the result is a state of affairs we term attentional myopia, in which individuals can focus on only the most salient internal and external cues, to the neglect of more distal stimuli. Their subsequent behavior is then likely to be under the near-exclusive motivational influence of those central cues. This state of attentional narrowing is predicted to lead to disinhibited behavior when salient internal or situational cues serve to promote the behavior in question and enhanced behavioral inhibition when those cues instead suggest restraint. The specific aims of this project include (1) investigating the ecological validity of the attentional myopia model in real-world setting, (2) examining how dynamic changes in attentional capacity result in alterations in self-regulatory abilities; (3) investigating situational and personality factors that predispose individuals to the effects of narrowed attention on self-regulation; (4) designing and implementing novel laboratory-based interventions to enhance individuals' capacity for self-control; and (5) conducting field studies testing approaches to modify unhealthy behaviors enacted by smokers and overweight dieters. The approach encompasses both individual and environmental sources of pathology and holds implications for the control of behaviors in a variety of health-relevant domains. The ultimate goals of the project are the documentation of maladaptive sources of self-regulation and the identification of factors that lead to successful self-control in areas critical to individuals' mental health and physical well-being.