Self-Control Training: A Scoping Review
Hand the client a fun activity while they wait and self-control choices shoot up, but we rarely check if the skill lasts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Finch et al. (2024) mapped every behavior-analytic self-control training experiment they could find. They pulled 25 studies that taught people to pick a bigger, later reward instead of a smaller, now one.
The team asked: what procedures are we using, and do we know if the skills last? They coded each paper for tricks like delay fading, signals, or giving kids fun tasks during the wait.
What they found
Across all 25 tests, one move worked every time: give the client something fun to do while they wait. The review calls this an "intervening activity." When it was in place, self-control choices jumped.
The bad news: only a handful of papers checked if the skill stayed sharp days or weeks later. Generalization data were almost missing.
How this fits with other research
The finding lines up with single-case gems the review swallowed whole. Clarke et al. (2003) showed three kids flipped from impulsive to self-controlled when they could color or play cards during the delay. Finch counts that paper inside their 25.
Carlin et al. (2012) stretched wait times bit by bit and also used a fun task; again, self-control rose. Finch labels that study as included evidence, not a contradiction.
Vessells et al. (2018) added signals to delay fading and saw even bigger gains. The scoping review files this under the same family, showing the field keeps polishing the same core idea.
Older narrative reviews like O'Leary et al. (1979) guessed self-management could work, but they had no tally of which pieces actually succeed. Finch’s 2024 map turns those old hunches into a clear recipe: give them something to do while they wait.
Why it matters
You no longer need to hunt for the "best" self-control trick. The evidence stack says: hand the client an engaging activity during the delay, then slowly stretch the wait time. Build your program around that, and collect your own maintenance data to fill the gap Finch exposed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We conducted a scoping review of the behavior analytic self-control training (SCT) literature. To identify included articles, we searched key terms in six databases for articles published between 1988 and 2021. We included empirical articles that used a behavioral approach to self-control training with human participants for whom increasing self-control choice was a clinically significant goal and measured self-control and impulsive choice as dependent variables. Twenty-five experiments from 24 articles with a total of 79 participants were included in the review. This review aims to summarize the characteristics of SCT procedures and outcomes, provide recommendations for future research directions, and offer practical suggestions to clinicians incorporating SCT into practice. We examined similarities across studies regarding the independent variables manipulated in SCT, dependent variables measured, metrics of successful interventions, and assessment of generalization and maintenance of self-control choice. Twenty-one experiments arranged concurrent self-control- and impulsive-choice options with positive reinforcement, and four experiments arranged self-control training with negative-reinforcement contingencies. Variations of SCT included progressively increasing delays, intervening activities, signaled delays, antecedent rules, and commitment responses. Providing an intervening activity during the delay was largely successful at increasing self-control choice. Maintenance and generalization of increased self-control choice were assessed in two and three experiments, respectively. Future research should focus on improving the generality of SCT procedures in clinical settings by increasing terminal delays, fading out intervening activities, including probabilistic outcomes, and combining appetitive and aversive outcomes. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00885-y.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2024 · doi:10.1007/s40617-023-00885-y