Self-regulation failure: an overview.

Intense pain and stress may deplete self-regulatory resources needed to cope effectively.

“Yet existing evidence suggests that the demands imposed by intense pain and stress may deplete the reservoir of self-regulatory resources needed to cope effectively (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996).”

In self-regulated activities, three factors are important for students: having a standard, monitoring progress, and correcting as necessary.

“In self-regulated activities, three factors are particularly important for students (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996): The student must have some standard to aim for (e.g., obtain a good grade in a course), monitor progress toward this standard, and correct as necessary if progress deviates from what is necessary to reach the standard.”

Monitoring is crucial in self-regulation; managing attention is the most common and often most effective form of self-regulation, and attentional problems presage many varieties of self-regulation failure.

“Baumeister and Heatherton (1996, p. 56) pointed out that monitoring is crucial: “Over and over, we found that managing attention was the most common and often the most effective form of self-regulation and that attentional problems presaged a great many varieties of self-regulation failure.””

Procrastination is a self-regulatory difficulty that draws heavily on attentional capacities.

“Procrastination is increasingly understood not merely as a problem of time management or motivation, but as a self-regulatory difficulty that draws heavily on attentional capacities”