New perspectives on self-control development: highlighting the role of intentional inhibition

Abstract

The ability to exert self-control over one׳s thoughts and actions is crucial for successful functioning in daily life. To date, self-control development has been primarily studied from the perspective of externally driven inhibition. In this review, we introduce a new perspective on the development of self-control by highlighting the importance of intentional inhibition. First, we will review the existing behavioral and neuroscientific literature on the development of self-control from the perspective of externally driven inhibition. Next, we will introduce a new framework for studying the development of self-control from the perspective of intentional inhibition. We will discuss several recent studies in this domain, showing that intentional inhibition within cold contexts has an early development, but continues to develop through adolescence in motivational contexts. We conclude that understanding the developmental trajectory of intentional inhibition in cold and motivationally relevant contexts and its underlying mechanisms is an important direction for future research, which has important implications for our understanding of developmental disorders associated with problems in self-control, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Keywords: Delay discounting; Development; Intentional inhibition; Self-control.