Whither Inhibition?
Open accessAbstract
Inhibition is considered a process essential to goal pursuit and as a result has become a central construct in many disciplines in psychology and adjacent fields. Despite a century’s worth of debate, however, there is little consensus about what inhibition actually is. We suggest that it is time to abandon the concept of inhibition as it currently stands, given that its definition has been problematic. Instead, we propose an alternative framework in which inhibition is the target outcome, rather than a process to obtain a goal. We leverage existing process models to elucidate how people can achieve an inhibition goal by actively regulating impulses and desires. Although the field has been led astray by classifying inhibition as a process, our framework is intended to provide greater practical utility to the study of goal pursuit moving forward.
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The pattern of results is consistent with recent calls to reconceptualize inhibition as an outcome rather than a process/mechanism that produces outcomes, in which the goal is to inhibit and we rely on other processes including working memory to do so successfully.
“Finally, this pattern of results is consistent with recent calls to reconceptualize inhibition as an outcome rather than a process/mechanism that produces outcomes (117). In this view, inhibition is not something we use to suppress a response; instead, the goal is to inhibit and we rely on other processes to do so successfully (117), including engaging working memory (this study) to adopt more”
From Working memory and inhibitory control deficits in children with ADHD: an experimental evaluation of competing model predictions (2024) · cites this paper as [117]
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- Authors
- Werner, K. M., Inzlicht, M., & Ford, B. Q.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Werner, Kaitlyn M.
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-07-14
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 333-339
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- PMC
- PMC9354058
- OpenAlex
- W4285387348
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 6.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2019-05280)
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Insight Grant #435-2018-0332, Insight Grant #435-2019-0144)
- University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Grit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation
- Keywords
- inhibition, goal pursuit, impulse control, process model, inhibitory control
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