Quiz — Chapter 13: Self-Regulation

25 questions. Answer key at end. Questions progress from recall through application and analysis.

Section 1: Foundational Concepts (Questions 1–8)

1. Self-regulation is best defined as:

A) Suppressing emotions and impulses to avoid conflict B) The capacity to override automatic responses in order to align behavior with goals and values C) The discipline to always choose long-term rewards over short-term pleasures D) Following externally imposed rules rather than acting on impulse

2. Which of the following is the most accurate characterization of System 1 and System 2 processing?

A) System 1 is irrational and unreliable; System 2 is accurate and trustworthy B) System 1 is fast, automatic, and associative; System 2 is slow, deliberate, and effortful C) System 1 handles emotional processes; System 2 handles cognitive processes D) System 1 requires high motivation; System 2 operates without awareness

3. The marshmallow studies conducted by Walter Mischel found that children who successfully delayed gratification did so primarily because:

A) They had stronger innate willpower than children who could not wait B) They used cognitive strategies (such as distraction or reframing) to reduce the temptation's power C) They were more intelligent and able to reason about future rewards D) They trusted that the marshmallow would be there when they returned

4. What did the 2018 Watts et al. replication of Mischel's marshmallow study find?

A) The original findings replicated exactly — delay of gratification predicted outcomes independent of background B) Delay of gratification was not related to any later outcomes in the replication C) Socioeconomic background and environmental reliability substantially accounted for the relationship between delay and later outcomes D) Children from lower-income backgrounds showed greater delay than those from higher-income backgrounds

5. The "attention cooling" strategy in Mischel's research refers to:

A) Reducing body temperature through relaxation to lower emotional arousal B) Mentally stepping back from a temptation — representing it abstractly rather than as immediately desirable C) Using distraction to avoid thinking about the temptation entirely D) Telling oneself that the delayed reward will be better than the immediate one

6. The ego depletion hypothesis, as originally formulated by Baumeister, proposed that:

A) Self-regulation is an unlimited resource that depends primarily on beliefs and motivation B) Willpower is a finite resource — expended by use and restored by glucose C) Emotional regulation is depleting, but cognitive regulation is not D) Depletion is a fixed biological fact that cannot be altered by psychological factors

7. Large-scale pre-registered replications of ego depletion studies found:

A) A large, consistent depletion effect across all laboratories B) The effect was present only in the original laboratory settings C) Little to no effect — the depletion effect did not replicate reliably D) Depletion was caused by glucose specifically, confirming the biological mechanism

8. Carol Dweck and colleagues' research on willpower beliefs found that:

A) Believing willpower is limited leads to better conservation and more strategic self-regulation B) Beliefs about willpower have no effect — only actual resource levels matter C) People who believe willpower is unlimited show less depletion than those who believe it is limited D) Believing willpower is unlimited leads to overconfidence and more self-regulation failures

Section 2: Implementation Intentions (Questions 9–12)

9. An implementation intention, as formulated by Peter Gollwitzer, takes the form:

A) "I want to accomplish [goal] because it matters to me." B) "When [specific situation X], I will do [specific behavior Y]." C) "If I fail to do [behavior], I will face [consequence]." D) "I commit to doing [behavior] every day at [time]."

10. Implementation intentions improve goal achievement primarily by:

A) Increasing motivation to pursue the goal B) Creating anticipatory mental links so that situational cues automatically trigger the intended response C) Making people feel more accountable to others D) Eliminating the gap between intention and motivation

11. Which of the following is the BEST example of an implementation intention?

A) "I will exercise more this year." B) "I intend to start working on the report when I feel ready." C) "When my alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m., I will put on my running shoes before checking my phone." D) "I will try to reduce my screen time by spending less time on social media."

12. A "defensive implementation intention" is designed to:

A) Protect against criticism of one's goals from others B) Specify in advance how to respond to an anticipated temptation or obstacle C) Plan for failure so that goal abandonment is less distressing D) Identify what to do when the primary implementation intention fails

Section 3: Emotion Regulation (Questions 13–17)

13. In James Gross's process model of emotion regulation, which strategy intervenes earliest in the emotion-generative sequence?

A) Suppression B) Reappraisal C) Attention deployment D) Situation selection

14. Research on emotional suppression (hiding or inhibiting the outward expression of emotion) consistently finds:

A) It effectively reduces both the subjective experience and physiological components of the emotion B) It reduces the subjective experience of emotion while increasing physiological arousal C) It is the most effective strategy for emotion regulation in social contexts D) It eliminates the emotion over time through habituation

15. Cognitive reappraisal — finding an alternative, equally accurate interpretation of a situation — is generally found to be:

A) Less effective than suppression because it requires more mental effort B) More effective and less costly than suppression, reducing both subjective and physiological components of emotion C) Equally effective as suppression in the short term, but more effective long-term D) Only effective for negative emotions, not for positive ones

16. Dr. Reyes describes the "response gap" — the ability to experience an impulse without immediately acting on it — as foundational to self-regulation. This concept is most closely related to which clinical approach?

A) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — restructuring automatic thoughts B) Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) / Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) — distress tolerance and acceptance skills C) Psychoanalytic therapy — making unconscious drives conscious D) Solution-focused therapy — focusing on future possibilities rather than past problems

17. The acceptance-based approach to emotion regulation (from ACT and mindfulness) suggests that:

A) Accepting negative emotions means endorsing or agreeing with the feelings B) Acknowledging and allowing emotional responses without acting on them or amplifying them with secondary judgment C) Practicing acceptance eliminates difficult emotions over time D) Acceptance means no longer experiencing the emotion, only observing it

Section 4: Habits, Environment, and Application (Questions 18–22)

18. From a self-regulation perspective, the main benefit of habits is that they:

A) Require less willpower, freeing executive resources for high-value decisions B) Are always aligned with one's long-term goals and values C) Eliminate the need for deliberate self-regulation in all domains D) Are easy to change once they are established

19. Environment design as a self-regulation strategy is effective primarily because it:

A) Increases motivation to pursue valued behaviors B) Alters the choice architecture so that valued behaviors require less effort and temptations require more C) Removes all temptations from the environment permanently D) Teaches people to resist temptation more effectively through practice

20. A commitment device (Ulysses contract) is best described as:

A) A written agreement with another person to hold you accountable to your goals B) A pre-commitment that constrains one's future choices, removing the option to choose the less-valued behavior in the moment C) A goal-setting technique in which consequences for failure are specified in advance D) A planning tool that prevents impulsive decision-making by requiring a waiting period

21. Jordan spends ninety minutes at his desk but only eleven minutes working on his proposal. According to the chapter's analysis, which of the following is the MOST LIKELY primary driver of this pattern?

A) Low motivation — Jordan doesn't actually want to work on the proposal B) Avoidance driven by the task's emotional aversiveness (anxiety, uncertainty about quality) C) A biological limitation on sustained attention (90 minutes is too long to focus) D) Poor time management — Jordan doesn't have a clear schedule

22. The self-regulation principle of "reducing decision fatigue" most directly relates to:

A) Making important decisions early in the day when executive resources are highest B) Automating low-value decisions (through habits and rules) to preserve deliberate self-regulation for high-value choices C) Delegating decisions to others to preserve cognitive capacity D) Taking regular breaks to restore executive function between decision cycles

Section 5: Integration and Analysis (Questions 23–25)

23. A student wants to study for exams but consistently finds herself checking social media instead. Which combination of interventions would be most consistent with the chapter's framework?

A) Increase motivation through visualizing exam success; set a timer; reward studying B) Delete social media apps; write a specific implementation intention ("When I sit at my desk at 7pm, I will open my notes before checking my phone"); use phone-in-another-room commitment device C) Develop stronger willpower through graduated resistance training; set daily studying goals D) Reappraise the importance of social media; reduce the time spent on it through willpower

24. Which of the following explanations best accounts for the observation that intrinsically motivated behavior requires less effortful self-regulation than extrinsically motivated behavior?

A) Intrinsically motivated people have higher baseline willpower B) Extrinsic motivation reduces the reward value of the task, increasing the cost of effort C) When System 1 (automatic processing) is already aligned with the goal, less System 2 (effortful) override is needed D) Intrinsically motivated behavior generates more dopamine, which directly enhances executive function

25. The chapter's central thesis about self-regulation effectiveness could best be summarized as:

A) Self-regulation is primarily a matter of character — people who fail have weak will and poor discipline B) Effective self-regulation is more about design (habits, environment, implementation intentions) than about effortful willpower in the moment C) Willpower is unlimited but requires training — the solution to self-regulation failure is to practice resistance more D) The key to self-regulation is emotional suppression — learning to push aside competing impulses

Answer Key