Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control: If you feel bad, do it!

“The self-efficacy version would propose that feeling upset would make the person feel incapable of successfully guiding behavior toward the realization of distal goals, and so the person would give up on them and concentrate on immediate gratification (see Bandura, 1977; Bandura & Schunk, 1981).”

“…Clyne & Blampied, 2004; Fairburn et al., 1995; McCarthy, 1990; Polivy & Herman, 2002), alcohol-related disorders (Sher & Grekin, 2007; Tice et al., 2001) and substance-related disorders (Fox, Axelrod, Paliwal, Sleeper, & Sinha, 2007; Linehan et al., 2002; Sher & Grekin, 2007; Tice et al., 2001).”

“Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister (2001) recently provided an example of the motivational force of even moderate levels of negative affect and of how declarative knowledge (specifically, expectancies of controllability) influenced coping with that affect.”

“Tice et al. (2001) showed that this effect is also a mood-repair strategy.”

“This idea derives some support from economic decisionmaking studies, which show that stress and negative affect increase impulsive decisions (Leith and Baumeister 1996; Gray 1999; Tice et al. 2001).”

“Because the need-oriented functions of emotion regulation are directed towards immediate gratification, this type of emotion regulation often has an impulsive quality (Tice et al., 2001).”

“In previous work, a majority of students at the university where this study was conducted rated eating cookies and other fattening snacks as an undesirable, unhealthy behavior that they would prefer to avoid (for example, Tice et al., 2001 ).”

“emotional regulation (Baumeister et al., 1994; Tice et al., 2001).”

“When selfesteem is threatened, people often indulge in immediate impulses to make themselves feel better, giving short-term affect regulation priority over other self-regulatory goals (Tesser, 1988; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000; Tice et al., 2001).”

“In fact, a recent study found that when people believe that a behavior will reduce their distress in the short-term, they are more likely to use it when they are distressed—even when such behavior is clearly self-defeating, such as eating fattening snacks or procrastinating (Tice et al., 2001).”

“If one is born with a predisposition to experience emotional states in unusually intense ways (Larsen, Billings, & Cutler, 1996), one would tend to experience more occasions in which one is less able to take full advantage of one's cognitive resources than would other individuals (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000; Tice et a…”

“Despite these findings, one could argue that the exertion of self-control leads to negative moods or frustration (Leith & Baumeister, 1996; Tice et al., 2001), loss of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975), or some other phenomenon that results in poorer performance.”

“One theory proposes that negative mood leads individuals to indulge immediate impulses as an attempt to improve affect, thus prioritizing short-term affect regulation over other selfregulatory goals (Tice et al. 2001).”

“Sleep and negative aVect have likewise each been linked to both self-regulation failure and aggression (Averill, 1982; Hindelang, 1976; Hindelang, Gottfredson, & Garofalo, 1978; Parrott, Garnham, Wesnes, & Pincock, 1996; Rand, Klaus, & Taylor, 1983; Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ).”

“Besides entailing the forgoing of pleasures ( Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ), the exertion of self-control appears to deplete a limited resource (selfcontrol strength) needed for the success of self-control (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000).”

“Second, the energy required to control emotions is drawn from the same pool of resources used in the self-regulation of behavior (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005; Tice et al., 2001; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000).”

“Abilities Measure” (see Tice et al., 2001 ).”

“To date, hardly any studies have examined whether eat ing actually decreases the impact of the emotional encounter that evoked the negative emotional experience, an exception being a study by Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister (2001).”

“The advantages of self regulation are often emphasized by American social psychologists (e.g., Tavris, 1989; Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ).”

“It is also consistent with the findings of Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister (2001), who found that induced emotional distress increases engagement in various impulsive behaviors, and furthermore these effects disappeared when individuals were led to believe that these behaviors would have no…”

“Similarly, in an article on training, Tyler (2004) urges, ‘‘[b]efore the whole bunch spoils, train managers to deal with poor performers’’ and says these ‘‘bad apples’’ are ‘‘like a cancer that spreads throughout the entire workplace’’ (p.”

“Second, people in the throes of strong emotion often have trouble seeing beyond the immediate situation and lose focus on their long-term goals (Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ).”

“The latter (positive and negative urgency), in contrast, appears to have the characteristic of emotional dysregulation: individuals act in ways inconsistent with their long-term interests because they are either extremely distressed or extremely excited and so lack the cognitive controls that are typically in place [2…”

“Perhaps people with low self-control engage in such behaviors in part as a response to preoccupation with death (see Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ).”

“However, people might be more successful at monitoring and regulating their intake if they are not focused primarily on regulating their affective states (Tice et al., 2001).”

“High arousal also tends to reduce people’s ability think through their actions (Leith and Baumeister, 1996; Tice et al., 2001).”

“Since past research has shown that affect regulation can produce strong effects on behavior (e.g., Tice et al. 2001; Zillmann 1988) even when there is no direct attempt to mitigate potential affect congruent effects (i.e., to shut down AE’s effect), it is assumed that AR can overcome the AE effects…”

“For instance, people who believe that they cannot influence their emotions are unlikely to engage in emotion regulation (e.g., Tice et al., 2001 ), even if they agree that emotional constraint is preferable.”

“Recent theory suggests that in the context of intense negative affect, individuals may engage in coping behaviors to provide immediate relief from distress, at the expense of long-term regulatory goals (Cyders & Smith, 2008; Tice et al., 2001).”

“For instance, negative affect and its ensuing urge to relieve bad moods (Tice et al., 2001) would be captured by Urgency.”

“Stress and negative affect are known to decrease self-control and executive function, including the ability to delay gratification for rewarding substances (Arnsten, 1998; Mischel et al., 1989; Muraven and Baumeister, 2000; Tice et al., 2001; Willner et al., 1998).”

“Personal distress may even result in a more egoistic motivation to reduce it, by withdrawing from the stressor, for example, thereby decreasing the likelihood of prosocial behavior (Tice et al., 2001).”

“This conflict may result in shifting attention away from the longer term goal of self-regulation, such as becoming healthier, and shifting attention toward decreasing emotional distress through seeking out immediate pleasure and relief, such as smoking a cigarette or acting impulsively (Tice et al., 2001).”

“As impulsivity in distress states may reflect a change in priority from self-control to affect regulation (Tice et al., 2001), persistent impulse-related”

“These intermediate traits between depression and emotional eating are also in line with understanding comfort eating as a component of broader emotional dysregulation (Tice et al., 2001).”

“For example, Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister (2001) have demonstrated that a negative mood induction can result in more time spent procrastinating as a way to restore positive mood, supporting the notion that procrastination has to do with the primacy of short-term mood repair over long-term goal…”

“Additionally, we have ruled out explanations in terms of mood/arousal (Mick and Faure 1998; Rook and Gardner 1993; Tice et al. 2001), presence of individuals (Luo 2005), attractiveness of female models (Wilson and Daly 2004), cognitive load (Hinson et al. 2003; Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999), mate…”

“Similarly, according to Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister (2001), emotional distress (e.g., anger, fear, loneliness) may shift priorities such that the individual will focus on shorter-term goals to escape the distressing situation, including engaging in more impulsive behaviors: “The emotionally…”

“Alternatively, these teens adopt short-term self-soothing behaviors (e.g., risky sex, sharing cutting utensils) over self-regulation (Tice et al., 2001).”

“This mood-freezing procedure was adapted from Tice et al. (2001).”

“For instance, Tice et al. (2001) demonstrated that induced emotional distress may lead to eating fattening snacks, a preference for immediate instead of delayed gratification, and to procrastination.”

“In fact, research has confirmed that consumption of this kind of food is considered to be an unhealthy and undesirable behavior that should be controlled (Tice et al., 2001).”

“A strong association between affective state and self-control capacity (Economides et al. 2015; Tice et al. 2001) may also hamper behavioural persistence.”

“…these and other findings indicate that negative affect typically leads to less self-control (e.g., Cools, Schotte, and McNally 1992; Labroo and Patrick 2009; Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister 2001), relatively less consensus exists with respect to positive affect (Fedorikhin and Patrick 2010).”

“…(2011) d = 0.37, n = 27.5 Vohs & Heatherton (2000) d = 0.84, n = 15.5 Webb & Sheeran (2003) d = 0.89, n = 17 Bargh et al. (2001) d = 0.71, n = 15 Tice et al. (2001) d = 1.04, n = 11.75 De Cremer & van Dijk (2002) d = 1.67, n = 34.25 Kerr et al. Study 1 (2009) d = 0.36, n = 44.5 Kerr et al.…”

“Other research has shown that emotional distress leads to decrements in self-regulation (Grilo, Shiffman, & Wing, 1989; Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001; Wegener & Petty, 1994).”

“In a series of experiments, Tice et al. (2001) demonstrated that emotional distress reduces impulse control when participants believe impulsive responding may alleviate negative affect.”

“For example, while it is theorised that those high in NUR may recruit a maladaptive behaviour in the service of immediate short-term relief from negative affect [33], this process may be mediated at initiation by the ‘expectancy’ that affect can be regulated and will deliver relief (see [28, 37]).”

“, 1988) emotion scale, a common, explicit, widely used measure that allows for a broad range of emotions (Egloff et al., 2003; Schmukle, Egloff, & Burns, 2002; Tice et al., 2001; Winkielman et al., 2005a).”

“Conventional wisdom often treats emotion as an impediment to rationality, and ample evidence has shown that intense emotional experiences can interfere with deliberation and self-control (Johnson and Tversky 1983; Loewenstein 1996; Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999; Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister 2001).”

“One possible alternative account of the resource depletion model was that the initial self-control task induced a state of heightened negative affect or increased arousal that interfered with performance on the second self-control task (Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001 ).”

“Apparently, despite their acknowledged role in the Good Life (Twenge & King, 2005 ) relationships can fade into the background requiring some prodding compared to other moderators.”

“stressed individuals may indulge impulses to eat to make themselves feel better (Tice et al., 2001).”