| Pitting long-term goals against short-term desires is among the most difficult tasks in human decision-making. According to behavioural and neuroeconomic theories of self-regulation, these decisions involve a competition between "hot" reward-focused impulses and "cool" cognitive control mechanisms. The current dissertation examines this topic from the perspective of social and personality neuroscience, exploring the cognitive and affective dynamics underlying the self-regulatory process. Chapters 1 and 2 explore how the "hot" system is dispositionally expressed in the personality trait of Extraversion, and the implications of this finding for decision-making behaviour. Turning to the "cool" system, Chapter 3 examines the role of effective performance monitoring in predicting real-world self-regulatory outcomes. Finally, Chapter 4 addresses the question of whether self-regulatory performance can be improved, reporting the effects of a goal-setting intervention on long-term decision-making. Results across the studies are discussed within an integrative model of self-regulation, situated within a social-personality neuroscience framework. |
