Stress and imagining future selves: resolve in the hot/cool framework

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The hot/cool framework, often used to explain self-control, is typically associated with suppression.
• Ainslie's work primarily links this framework to the suppression of impulses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the broader implications of the hot/cool framework beyond suppression.
• To investigate the framework's connection to resolve and future self-access.
• To propose a link between the cool system's integrity and both willpower and episodic memory.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of Ainslie's hyperbolic discounting model.
• Integration of concepts from cognitive psychology regarding episodic memory and self-access.
• Theoretical prediction of the impact of negative factors on the cool system.

Main Results:

• The hot/cool framework has significant implications for understanding resolve, not just suppression.
• Resolve is fundamentally linked to accessing future selves, a function of the cool system.
• The cool system's functionality is tied to episodic memory.

Conclusions:

• Factors that impair the cool system, such as stress, are predicted to negatively affect willpower.
• Impaired cool system function is also predicted to impact episodic memory.
• This suggests a unified mechanism underlying willpower, episodic memory, and resolve.