Alessia Pannese

Self-control is the ability to regulate and override one’s own thoughts, emotions, and actions, keeping them in line with overarching goals. Self-control is typically studied in terms of conscious executive function. Ancient philosophical notions and contemporary empirical neuroscience, however, suggest that much of human behaviour is not deliberate, but rather relies on unconscious, automatic processes. This project sets itself the objective of investigating the relation between the conscious and automatic aspects of self-control, from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Specifically, it proposes to examine two questions:

(i) Is self-control more or less effective depending on whether it is exercised by anticipating/avoiding as opposed to inhibiting/resisting temptation?

I will examine the empirical evidence on the impact of consciousness or lack thereof on the ability to exercise self-control in the light of Aristotle’s dichotomy between continence and temperance.

(ii) Can self-control be unconsciously primed?

I will compare and contrast the empirical evidence on the relation of self-control to cognitive load with the Aristotelian notion of habit, in order to elucidate the modalities and extent to which self-control depletes–or repletes–cognitive resources.

This study will examine these two aspects of self-control through an interdisciplinary approach that juxtaposes and integrates ancient philosophical intuitions with empirical evidence from contemporary neuroscience. The knowledge resulting from this work will serve as the basis for further theoretical and empirical enquiry into self-regulation.