This process looks for the clues and presence of the suppressed thought in our mind or in the environment. Unconscious and Monitoring Process: This process requires little effort it is automatic and very hard to disrupt.distracting ourselves with eating broccoli or playing around with our phone while we think about eating a chocolate bar. Conscious and Operating Process: Putting deliberate effort to have our mental state in the desired and mental state and this effort can be disrupted due to high mental load (stress, fatigue, alcohol and etc) E.g.Why does the Rebound Effect behave this way? How come the more we try to suppress a thought, the worse it gets?īased on Wegner’s ironic process theory, the act of suppressing a thought activates two distinct processes: In its most extreme presentation, the Rebound Effect can be seen in various disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders and Anxiety Disorders (Erskine et al., 2007 Purdon, 1999 Wegner & Zanakos, 1994). It seems like every time you suppress a thought, you actually remind yourself to do exactly the opposite. Every time I remind myself not to spill the miso soup at the sushi place, or get red wine on my new shirt, I always end up doing exactly that. As someone who is very clumsy, I notice this all the time. The Rebound Effect is very common and often is experienced on a daily basis. This phenomenon is called the Rebound Effect, in which “attempts at suppression, increase the occurrence of the thought, instead of decreasing it”. Or alternatively, when you focus on trying to eat less sugar, all of a sudden you crave chocolate and ice cream. Have you ever had nights when you try to fall asleep, but you simply cannot? The harder you try and the more you think about it, the more wide-awake you become. When should we give up? Choosing when to disengage from a goal.ĭo reminders help to increase our self-control?.What are the advantages and disadvantages of excuses?.The more you try to fall asleep, the more awake you feel) The ironic effects of mental control (Ex.Specifically, in this article we will discuss: Throughout this article, we will dive deeper into why this may be the case, and how these obstacles can be overcome.
In our second article, we discussed why self-control is so difficult and how we overcome obstacles to improve our self-regulation skills.Īt the end of our last article, we left you with a dilemma: you have an established goal and solid idea of how to get there, however, you constantly come up with excuses to deviate from what you have to do. In the first part of our series, we discussed what self-control is and why it is so critical to in achieving high performance and well-being.