Framing Temptations in Relation to the Self

Self-control concerns the successful management of the conflicting desires or emotions toward which the self is in some sense invested. The prospects for self-control are affected by how these desires and emotions are represented, and this chapter argues for giving special attention to how people frame temptations with respect to their sense of self. Drawing on philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s concept of identification, which is supposed to establish the boundaries for what is internal and external to the self, the authors distinguish two attitudes that a person can take toward her temptations: acceptance and alienation. They describe their descriptive and laboratory studies testing, among other things, whether those who accept their temptations as part of the self fare better at self-control than do those who alienate their temptations as external to the self. The results show significant differences, but they do not paint a simple picture of the relationship.