The role of valence weighting in impulse control

We propose that individuals' valence weighting biases-the extent to which they tend to overweight positive or negative valence in attitude generalization-play an important role in impulse control. Specifically, people who tend to overweight positive valence should likewise overweight impulses, which are essentially urges to achieve positively-valued outcomes, in their initial appraisals of self-control situations, leading to a greater likelihood of impulse control failure. Conversely, people who underweight positive valence should also underweight impulses in these initial evaluative appraisals and should thus be more likely to successfully control their impulses. However, we predicted this relationship would hold only for individuals low in trait self-control, since those high in trait self-control should be both motivated and able to override their initial valence weighting-based appraisals. We supported these predictions across two studies using different impulse control performance measures: a frustrating anagram task (Study 1) and a Stroop task (Study 2).