"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

Tak Sang Chow; Chin Ming Hui; Tiffany Sok U Siu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.851964

"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

Front Psychol. 2022 Apr 5:13:851964. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.851964. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Tak Sang Chow^{1

2}, Chin Ming Hui³, Tiffany Sok U Siu²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Counselling and Psychology, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
² Wan Chow Yuk Fan Centre for Interdisciplinary Evidence-Based Practice and Research, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
³ Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.

Abstract

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 (expectancy) and perceived value of current self-control (value) 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.

Keywords: expectancy; self-control; self-determination; self-efficacy; value.