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WIREs Cogn Sci

Self‐control: limited resources and extensive benefits

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Jessica Alquist, Roy F. Baumeister

Published Online: Mar 07 2012

DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1173

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Successful self‐control has many benefits for individuals and society as a whole. Self‐regulation relies on a limited resource. After one act of self‐control, this resource is reduced, thereby impairing future acts of self‐control. Self‐control resources can be managed and conserved for future tasks. Recent research on perceived self‐control (in the self and others), self‐control in interpersonal interactions, and the physiological basis of the limited resource model point to promising areas for future self‐control research. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:419–423. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1173

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Konrad Körding is Assistant Professor of Physiology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, part of Northwestern University. Before joining Northwestern in 2006, Professor Körding worked in three different research groups, most recently in 2004-2005 at MIT, studying machine learning and hierarchical Bayesian models.

Professor Körding is a member of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience, the German Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Neuroscience (USA) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Professor Körding’s current research with the Bayesian Behavior group aims to improve rehabilitation procedures through a greater understanding of motor learning. In order to do this the team studies how people move, and how these movements are affected by uncertainty.

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