Open AccessFrom thought to action: On the relevance of including situational cues in thought about intended actions
Author(s) -
Torsten Martiny-Huenger,
Yevhen Damanskyy,
Elizabeth J. ParksStamm
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0264342
Subject(s) - situational ethics , psychology , cognitive psychology , conscientiousness , action (physics) , perspective (graphical) , social psychology , personality , big five personality traits , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , extraversion and introversion
Successful everyday self-regulation often hinges on implementing intended responses at a later time–often in specific situations. We address this self-regulation challenge by examining the role of individuals’ thought about intended actions–and specifically whether it does or does not include situational cues. We hypothesized that including situational cues when thinking about intended actions enables stimulus-response learning, thereby increasing the likelihood of implementing the intended actions. Consequently, we pre-registered and found ( N = 392, age range 18–94) a positive relationship between the self-reported habitual inclusion of situational cues in thought about intended actions and everyday self-regulation success (assessed by self-reported self-efficacy and self-control beliefs). In addition, we provide exploratory evidence that the inclusion of situational cues in thought about intended actions mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and self-regulation success. We discuss the results and the theoretical perspective in relation to how self-control outcomes can be explained by associative learning.