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Self-Regulation

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Sometimes used interchangeably with self-control (but see distinction made below)

Definition

The psychological process by which a person strives to attain valued outcomes. Self-regulation consists of all manner of goal setting and goal pursuit, which can be accomplished through both effortful control of behavior and effortless, automatic, or habitual forms of goal-directed behavior.

Introduction

Though the term self-regulation has sometimes been equated with self-control, here we use the term self-regulation more broadly to refer to the regulation of one’s behavior and emotions through the process of pursuing one’s goals, including goal setting and both effortful and automatic forms of goal-driven behavior (de Ridder et al. 2012; Fujita 2011). People engage in self-regulation throughout the day, and in many domains (e.g., work, leisure, health, sex, alcohol, tobacco, hygiene, sleep), as a means to reach both short-term and long-term goals (Hofmann et al. 2012). Such instances...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Kaitlyn M. Werner & Marina Milyavskaya

  2. Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, Room 614, Education Building, 3700 McTavish Street, H3A 1Y2, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Isabelle Leduc-Cummings & Marina Milyavskaya

Authors
  1. Isabelle Leduc-Cummings
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  2. Kaitlyn M. Werner
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  3. Marina Milyavskaya
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marina Milyavskaya .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Christian Jordan

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Leduc-Cummings, I., Werner, K.M., Milyavskaya, M. (2017). Self-Regulation. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1179-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1179-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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