• Corpus ID: 142694007

Attention and Self-Regulation: A Control-Theory Approach to Human Behavior

@inproceedings{Carver1981AttentionAS,
  title={Attention and Self-Regulation: A Control-Theory Approach to Human Behavior},
  author={Charles S Carver and Michael F Scheier},
  year={1981}
}

• C. Carver, M. Scheier
• Published 31 December 1981
• Psychology

I. Background.- 1. Introduction.- A Statement of Intentions.- Organizational Plan.- 2. Cybernetics, Information, and Control.- Information.- Levels of Information.- Classification of Input.- Control.- Negative Feedback Loop and TOTE Unit.- Organizations Among Feedback Loops.- Positive Feedback Loops.- Hierarchical Organization and Time Scales.- Section Summary.- Applications to Living Systems.- Homeostasis.- Adaptation-Level Theory.- Behavior Regulation.- Information, Control, and Personality-Social Psychology.- 3. Focus of Attention, Inside and Outside the Laboratory.- Defining Terms.- Attention.- Self-Focus and Environment Focus.- Maintaining the Distinction.- Varying Attention in Research.- General Issues in Research Strategy.- Experimental Manipulations and Individual Differences.- Experimental Manipulations: Their Nature and Timing.- Manipulations of Self-Attention.- Validation.- Individual Differences in Self-Focus.- Validation.- Convergence of Manipulation and Disposition.- Validity.- Private and Public Self-Awareness.- Beyond the Laboratory.- Naturalistic Variations in Attentional Focus.- Attention to the Environment.- Attention to the Self.- Conclusion.- II. Information and the Use of Recognitory Schemas.- 4. Cognitive Theory: Schemas, Attributes, and Decision Biases.- Models of Abstraction.- Instance Theories.- Prototype Theories.- Frequency-Distribution Theories.- Section Summary.- Schemas and Prototypes.- Abstraction: Some Additional Issues.- A Hierarchy of Attribute Qualities.- Frames and Scripts.- Decision Making.- Biases in Decision Making.- Section Summary.- 5. Focus on the Environment: Perception of Places and Persons.- Behavioral Settings and Environmental Taxonomies.- Person Perception.- Traits as Recognitory Schemas.- Determinants of Initial Category Placement.- Consequences of Initial Category Placement.- Organization of Perception of Sequences.- Segmenting of Behavior Units.- Focus of Attention and Perception of the Environment.- 6. Focus on the Self: Perception of Self-Aspects.- Trait Schemas and the Self.- Self Schemas and Encoding.- Component Schemas and Degrees of Schematicity.- Conclusion.- Access to Self Schemas.- Self-Focus and Encoding by Self-Reference.- Self-Focus and Activation of the Self Schema.- Access and Attribution.- Internal States: Emotions and Symptoms.- Three Sources of Influence on Perceived Internal States.- Impact of Each Element on Subjective Experience.- Schemas and Symptom Distress.- Evoked Schemas and the By-Passing of Awareness.- Summary.- III. Attention and Motivation.- 7. Standards of Behavior.- Standards.- What is a Behavioral Standard?.- Categorization and the Specification of Behavior.- Section Summary.- A Hierarchy of Standards.- Levels of Behavioral Standards.- Conceptual Levels and the Physical.- Execution of Behavior.- Distinctions Within Levels.- Summary.- Programs, Principles, and Consciousness.- Effects of Attending to Well-Learned Behavior.- Closing Comment.- 8. Self-Focus and Feedback Loops.- Discrepancy Reduction.- Theory.- Duval and Wicklund's Theory.- The Comparison of Present State Versus Standard.- Self-Awareness and Information Seeking.- Self-Consciousness and Information Seeking.- Self-Consciousness and the Seeking of Diagnostic Information.- Self-Awareness and the Seeking of Diagnostic Information.- Conclusions and Boundary Condition.- Behavioral Matching to Standard.- Nonprovoked Aggression.- Responses to Erotica.- Children's Use of Standards.- Section Summary.- Discrepancy Enlargement.- Reactance.- Self-Awareness and Reactance.- Self-Consciousness and Reactance.- Self-Attention, Reactance, and Feedback Loops.- Negative Reference Groups.- Self-Consciousness and Use of Negative Reference Groups.- Positive Feedback Loop.- Social Comparison: A Theoretical Integration.- 9. Absence of Regulation, and Misregulation.- A Conceptual Distinction.- The Absence of Regulation.- Causes.- Deindividuation and the Absence of Regulation.- Remaining Issues Regarding Deindividuation Related Issues.- Misregulation.- Ilustrations from Behavioral Medicine.- Illustrations from.- Social Behavior.- Summary.- IV. Interruption, Expectancy and the Reassertion-Withdrawal Decision.- 10. Theory: Interrupting the Feedback Loop, and the Role of Expectancy.- Interruption of the System: An Example.- Response to Interruption: Assessment of Outcome Expectancy.- Bases of Expectancies.- Prior Success and Failure.- Other Bases for Expectancies.- Consequences of Expectancy Judgments.- Behavioral Consequences.- Relationship to Other Theories.- Affective Consequences of Expectancy Judgments.- Summary.- 11. Research: Persistence and Task Performance.- Early Research.- Discrepancy and the Avoidance of Self-Focusing Stimul.- Discrepancy and Selective Exposure to Self.- Subsequent Research Concerning Outcome Expectancy.- Avoidance and the Flexibility of the Discrepancy.- Self-Focus and Expectancies: Persistence and Withdrawal.- Self-Consciousness, Prior Outcomes, and Persistence.- Self-Esteem, Self-Attention, and Task Performance.- Self-Awareness, Relevance, and Persistence.- Outcome Expectancy and Efficacy Expectancy.- Links Between Cognition and Emotion in Achievement.- Attributions, Expectancy, and Achievement Behavior.- Prior Outcomes, Attribution, and Maze Performance.- Summary.- 12. Research: Anxiety-Related Behavior.- Self-Attention and Fear.- Self-Awareness and Phobic Behavior.- Self-Consciousness, Standards, and Fear.- Expectancies, Fear, and the Approach-Withdrawal Decision.- Self-Attention and Test Anxiety.- Test Anxiety, Self-Focus, and Facilitation of Performance.- Theoretical Comparisons.- Theories of Test Anxiety.- Self-Efficacy.- Summary.- 13. Additional Conceptual Issues: Achievement Motivation, Helplessness, and Egotism.- Achievement Motivation.- Atkinson's Formulation.- Relationship to Present Model.- The Role of Causal Attributions.- Section Summary.- Helplessness.- Reassertion and Giving Up.- Attributions, Behavior, and Affect.- Section Summary.- Egotism and Self-Esteem Maintenance.- Control Theory and Self-Esteem Maintenance.- Egotism and Attribution.- Egotism and Helplessness.- Expectancies, Outcomes, and the Effect of Perceived Difficulty.- Conceptual Similarities Self-Esteem Protection: Public or Private?.- Section Summary.- Summary.- V. Implications for Specific Problems in Social and Personality Psychology.- 14. Relationship Between Self-Report and Behavior.- Problems of Measurement.- Levels of Specificity of Self-Report and Behavior.- Insufficient Sampling of Behavior.- Assessment of Behavioral Inconsistency.- Conceptual Problems.- Veridicality of Self-Reports.- The Role of Direct Experience in Attitude Formation.- Relevance of Attitudes as Behavioral Standards.- Self-Awareness and the Use of Evoked Attitudes.- Types of Self-Report.- 15. Social Facilitation.- Drive Theory and Social Facilitation.- Alternative Drive Theories.- Control Theory and Social Facilitation.- Comparisons Among Theories.- Evidence Regarding Mediating States.- Self-Focus and Comparison with Standards.- Drive.- Palmar Sweat and Social Facilitation.- Results and Discussion.- Additional Questions.- Social Interference.- Comparisons Among Manipulations.- Physiological Response Patterning.- 16. Private and Public Selves.- Self-Completion, or Self-Presentation?.- Impact on Research Areas.- Self, or Selves?.- Aspects of Self.- Implications.- The Consciousness of Public Versus Private Self-Aspects.- Public and Private Selves in a Compliance Setting.- Public and Private Selves and Reactions to Coercion.- The Public Expression of Privately Held Opinions.- Private and Public Self-Awareness Reinterpreting Other Research.- Section Summary.- Self-Monitoring.- Summary, Critique, and Integration.- 17. Cognitive Dissonance.- Self-Attention and Dissonance.- Public and Private Self-Aspects Tests of the Public-Private Analysis.- Self-Focus Manipulations and Dissonance Reduction.- Self-Consciousness and Dissonance Reduction.- Relationship to Other Dissonance Research.- Dissonance, or Impression Management?.- VI. Conclusion.- 18. Afterword: Theory and Meta-Theory.- Changes in the Learning Paradigm.- Meta-Theoretical Issues.- Reinforcement.- Control Theory.- Conclusion.- References.- Author Index.