Attaining Self-Regulation

Perhaps our most important quality as humans is our capability to self-regulate. It has provided us with an adaptive edge that enabled our ancestors to survive and even flourish when changing conditions led other species to extinction. Our regulatory skill and lack thereof is the source of our perception of personal agency that lies at the core of our sense of self. Understanding how this capability develops, its various subcomponents, and its functions has been a major thrust of social cognitive theory and research. Of equal importance is the explanation for common dysfunctions in self-regulatory functioning, such as biased self-monitoring, self-blaming judgments, and defensive self-reactions. This chapter will define self-regulation, and will discuss the structure of self-regulatory systems, social and physical environmental context influences on self-regulation, dysfunctions in self-regulation, and self-regulatory development. (http://books.google.fr/books?id=u9e1RWMbtjEC&lpg=PP1&hl=fr&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false)