ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Why has evolution not selected for perfect self-control?
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neural geometry in the human hippocampus enables generalization across spatial position and gaze.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Article
- Compare first, evaluate later: Upending the neuroscience of choice.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Rational inattention in neural coding for economic choice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Semi-orthogonal subspaces for value mediate a tradeoff between binding and generalization.ArXiv · 2023Article
- Hierarchical organization of rhesus macaque behavior.Oxford open neuroscience · 2023Article
- The Promise of Behavioral Tracking Systems for Advancing Primate Animal Welfare.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
- The costs of over-control in anorexia nervosa: evidence from fMRI and ecological momentary assessment.Translational psychiatry · 2021Article
- Political games of attack and defence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Are capuchin monkeys (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Detours increase local knowledge-Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure.PloS one · 2021Article
- Mice lacking paternal expression of imprinted Grb10 are risk-takers.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2020Article
- Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Prefrontal cortex and cognitive control: new insights from human electrophysiology.F1000Research · 2019Review
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Abstract
Self-control refers to the ability to deliberately reject tempting options and instead select ones that produce greater long-term benefits. Although some apparent failures of self-control are, on closer inspection, reward maximizing, at least some self-control failures are clearly disadvantageous and non-strategic. The existence of poor self-control presents an important evolutionary puzzle because there is no obvious reason why good self-control should be more costly than poor self-control. After all, a rock is infinitely patient. I propose that self-control failures result from cases in which well-learned (and thus routinized) decision-making strategies yield suboptimal choices. These mappings persist in the decision-makers' repertoire because they result from learning processes that are adaptive in the broader context, either on the timescale of learning or of evolution. Self-control, then, is a form of cognitive control and the subjective feeling of effort likely reflects the true costs of cognitive control. Poor self-control, in this view, is ultimately a result of bounded optimality. This article is part of the theme issue 'Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications.
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