The voice of self-control: blocking the inner voice increases impulsive responding.
By Alexa M. Tullett, Michael Inzlicht. 2010
71 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Philosophers and psychologists have long-debated the notion that the voice in our heads might help us to control our actions. Evidence from a number of lines of research suggests that verbal resources help us to focus attention, providing reason to believe that the inner voice might aid self-control via this capacity. In this study we explored the link between verbal resources and self-control by occupying the inner voice and then assessing behavioral indices of self-control. Participants completed regular and switching versions of the Go/No-Go task while doing verbal or spatial secondary tasks. Compared with the spatial task, doing the verbal task resulted in more impulsive responding, as indicated by a greater tendency to make a 'Go' response, a pattern that was accentuated in the switching version of the Go/No-Go. Our results suggest that the inner voice helps us to exert self-control by enhancing our ability to restrain our impulses.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, General Decision Sciences, Cognitive Science & Psychology
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Applied Psychology
In Cognitive Neuroscience
In General Decision Sciences
In Cognitive Science & Psychology
- Ben Alderson-Day
- Charles Fernyhough
- Alain Morin
- E. Meins
- Simon McCarthy-Jones
- Christopher Jarrold
- David M Williams
- D. Bowler
Citations in the corpus
- Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology (2015, positive): “These findings are in line with Vygotsky’s original observations that private speech depends on children’s understanding that they are in the presence of an interlocutor who can understand them, and are consistent with his view that private speech emerges through a differentiation of the social regu”
- Self-Awareness Part 1: Definition, Measures, Effects, Functions, and Antecedents (2011, background): “Tullett and Inzlicht (2010) blocked participants' inner speech by asking them to mentally repeat the word 'computer' and observed greater impulsivity (i.e., more errors) on a task requiring to press (or not to press) on a button following the presentation of preselected stimuli.”