Mechanisms of self-control: The role of anticipated emotions and future thinking in reward regulation (A06)

• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2012 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178833530

Project A06 investigates mechanisms underlying self-control, i.e., the ability to resist short-term rewards and inhibit immediate desires in favor of long-term goals. Based on a process model of self-control, we combine behavioral tasks, fMRI, and TMS to investigate how self-controlled choices result from the interplay of brain systems involved in the monitoring of conflicts between current desires and long-term goals, systems mediating anticipations of future emotions and need states, and systems underlying cognitive control and value-based choice. In addition, we will examine whether individual differences in these processes and un-derlying brain systems predict self-control in real-life conflict situations.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 940: Volition and Cognitive Control: Mechanisms, Modulators and Dysfunctions
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Thomas Goschke; Dr. Franziska Korb, since 7/2016; Professor Dr. Henrik Walter, since 7/2020; Dr. Uta Wolfensteller, until 6/2020