People Use Self-Control to Risk Personal Harm: An Intra-Interpersonal Dilemma

Abstract

People will smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, binge eat, drink coffee, eat chili peppers, fail tests, steal, ingest illicit drugs, engage in violent and sadistic actions including killing, have sex, and seek to become HIV positive for the sake of interpersonal acceptance. The self-control for personal harm model reconceptualizes behaviors that have both urge and control components as demonstrating either successful or failed self-control, depending on the incipient urge. The model underscores the role of expected social rewards as an important incentive for which people sometimes engage in personally risky and aversive behaviors despite feeling that they would rather avoid the behaviors and attendant harm. Research from diverse perspectives converges to show that risky behaviors, which might on the surface appear to be self-control failures, can in fact require self-control exertion.