When you find yourself, in a morning, averse to rise, have this thought at hand: I arise to the proper business of a man: And shall I be averse to set about that work for which I was born, and for which I was brought into the universe? Have I this constitution and furniture of soul granted me by nature, that I may lye among bed-cloaths and keep my self warm? (Aurelius, Reference Aurelius2008, p. 58)
In the above quote, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, relies on a familiar idea: The way in which we construe of a given situation will influence how we conduct ourselves. Like Aurelius, much of Hellenistic philosophy was engaged with an approach to philosophy where philosophy does not only help us understand the world, but also enables us to lead better lives (Hadot, Reference Hadot1995). Extending Bermúdez's analysis to Aurelius, by framing the Smaller Sooner (SS) reward of lying in bed as contrary to his very purpose and thereby as aversive, Aurelius effects changes on his behavior.
The literature on framing effects has focused on the use of framing to steer other people, rather than in using frames to steer oneself. But as the case of Marcus Aurelius illustrates, while the discussion of frames in decision theory and psychology has not emphasized the use of frames in regulating our own behavior, the idea and phenomenon are far from new.
While some, including the present author, extend the scope of the concept of self-control beyond delayed gratification, many instances of self-control include a delay-discounting component. Ingeniously, Bermúdez suggests that construing of an instance of delaying gratification as an instance of self-control is in itself a frame that conveys a “struggle over temptation”: even if the agent prefers SS over the Larger Later (LL) reward, she may prefer overcoming this struggle to LL (Bermúdez, 2022). This analysis suggests that not only do frames direct our attention to various aspects of our environment and the objects of choice over others, they also direct our attention to certain aspects of our own agency over others.
Frames are not uniquely effective in shaping our actions. Rather, frames impact what information we attend to. A similar impact on behavior can be expected from other factors that modulate information salience. For example, the notion of “choice architecture” (Thaler & Sunstein, Reference Thaler and Sunstein2008) underscores how factors that obscure or highlight certain features of the environment impact behavior, an effect that is best understood in terms of modulating which information is most salient to agents.
The action-modulating force of the environment is also highlighted by pluralists about self-control who argue that self-control can be accomplished by a variety of means, including both intrapsychic means (construal/framing, inhibitory control, self-distraction) and situation selection and situational modification (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, Reference Duckworth, Gendler and Gross2016; Koi, Reference Koi2021a). Situational strategies, including situation selection and situation modification, can be used to decrease the salience of SS cues, and to add to the salience of cues promoting LL-conforming behaviors. Strategies like self-distraction and the avoidance of tempting situations both help to decrease the salience of the SS reward, whereas construal and setting up cues and reminders can also operate by increasing the salience of certain features of the LL and/or SS reward. While situational strategies are often analyzed in terms of modulating the effortfulness and hence the cost of the competing courses of action, situational strategies also modulate information salience; some, such as setting reminders, only operate on salience rather than significantly modulating effort. As a result, it appears that the modulation of information salience is a general feature of most self-control strategies, and framing is one of the many ways to accomplish this.
Watzl (Reference Watzl, Brent and Titusforthcoming) argues that self-control is not special in this regard, and that attentional processes are essential for all action. As Watzl points out, agents rely on framing and other attentional processes also when no self-control is required. Considering the richness of our lived circumstances, where there is more actionable information than agents can feasibly process (Wu, Reference Wu2011), the modulating effect of attentional processes on action should be unsurprising. Understanding this relationship also helps explain why disorders of attention, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, often result in difficulties in supposedly volitional processes, including self-control (Koi, Reference Koi2021b).
The broader question that arises is, then, not whether attentional systems play any explanatory role in action and choice, but rather to what extent attention and salience leave an explanatory gap for other systems to fill in. In Bermúdez's analysis, frames impact our decision-making because they highlight features of the choice at hand that align with the “hot” and “cold” cognitive–affective systems (Bermúdez, 2022). Is there, in fact, an explanatory role for the dual process theory here? As agents in complex worlds cannot attend to all relevant information, the salience of certain information can be expected to be predictive of our decision-making, regardless of how it maps onto a dual process conception of cognition. Moreover, decisions are sometimes difficult because the “cold” systems recommend more than one course of action. The framing effect's explanatory power over self-control would scarcely be diminished by considering it without recourse to dual process theories.
The dual process theory is not the only theory whose explanatory force is called into question by the role of information salience in self-control. Much of the literature on self-control has posited a dedicated “willpower,” “ego depletion,” or “muscle” (Baumeister & Exline, Reference Baumeister and Exline1999; Baumeister, Tice, & Vohs, Reference Baumeister, Tice and Vohs2018) or else reduced self-control to inhibitory control (Cohen, Berkman, & Lieberman, Reference Cohen, Berkman, Lieberman, Stuss and Knight2013) or a sequence of cognitive control (Sripada, Reference Sripada2021). The ego depletion hypothesis has been questioned (Inzlicht & Friese, Reference Inzlicht and Friese2019), whereas there are concerns that inhibitory and cognitive control processes are too general to help account for the decisional aspect of self-control. If it is plausible that self-control operates, at least in part, by modulating information salience, future research on self-control should seek to devise means to control for the role of attentional processes in self-control, and to see to what extent there remains an explanatory gap for other proposed mechanisms to fill.
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When you find yourself, in a morning, averse to rise, have this thought at hand: I arise to the proper business of a man: And shall I be averse to set about that work for which I was born, and for which I was brought into the universe? Have I this constitution and furniture of soul granted me by nature, that I may lye among bed-cloaths and keep my self warm? (Aurelius, Reference Aurelius2008, p. 58)
In the above quote, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, relies on a familiar idea: The way in which we construe of a given situation will influence how we conduct ourselves. Like Aurelius, much of Hellenistic philosophy was engaged with an approach to philosophy where philosophy does not only help us understand the world, but also enables us to lead better lives (Hadot, Reference Hadot1995). Extending Bermúdez's analysis to Aurelius, by framing the Smaller Sooner (SS) reward of lying in bed as contrary to his very purpose and thereby as aversive, Aurelius effects changes on his behavior.
The literature on framing effects has focused on the use of framing to steer other people, rather than in using frames to steer oneself. But as the case of Marcus Aurelius illustrates, while the discussion of frames in decision theory and psychology has not emphasized the use of frames in regulating our own behavior, the idea and phenomenon are far from new.
While some, including the present author, extend the scope of the concept of self-control beyond delayed gratification, many instances of self-control include a delay-discounting component. Ingeniously, Bermúdez suggests that construing of an instance of delaying gratification as an instance of self-control is in itself a frame that conveys a “struggle over temptation”: even if the agent prefers SS over the Larger Later (LL) reward, she may prefer overcoming this struggle to LL (Bermúdez, 2022). This analysis suggests that not only do frames direct our attention to various aspects of our environment and the objects of choice over others, they also direct our attention to certain aspects of our own agency over others.
Frames are not uniquely effective in shaping our actions. Rather, frames impact what information we attend to. A similar impact on behavior can be expected from other factors that modulate information salience. For example, the notion of “choice architecture” (Thaler & Sunstein, Reference Thaler and Sunstein2008) underscores how factors that obscure or highlight certain features of the environment impact behavior, an effect that is best understood in terms of modulating which information is most salient to agents.
The action-modulating force of the environment is also highlighted by pluralists about self-control who argue that self-control can be accomplished by a variety of means, including both intrapsychic means (construal/framing, inhibitory control, self-distraction) and situation selection and situational modification (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, Reference Duckworth, Gendler and Gross2016; Koi, Reference Koi2021a). Situational strategies, including situation selection and situation modification, can be used to decrease the salience of SS cues, and to add to the salience of cues promoting LL-conforming behaviors. Strategies like self-distraction and the avoidance of tempting situations both help to decrease the salience of the SS reward, whereas construal and setting up cues and reminders can also operate by increasing the salience of certain features of the LL and/or SS reward. While situational strategies are often analyzed in terms of modulating the effortfulness and hence the cost of the competing courses of action, situational strategies also modulate information salience; some, such as setting reminders, only operate on salience rather than significantly modulating effort. As a result, it appears that the modulation of information salience is a general feature of most self-control strategies, and framing is one of the many ways to accomplish this.
Watzl (Reference Watzl, Brent and Titusforthcoming) argues that self-control is not special in this regard, and that attentional processes are essential for all action. As Watzl points out, agents rely on framing and other attentional processes also when no self-control is required. Considering the richness of our lived circumstances, where there is more actionable information than agents can feasibly process (Wu, Reference Wu2011), the modulating effect of attentional processes on action should be unsurprising. Understanding this relationship also helps explain why disorders of attention, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, often result in difficulties in supposedly volitional processes, including self-control (Koi, Reference Koi2021b).
The broader question that arises is, then, not whether attentional systems play any explanatory role in action and choice, but rather to what extent attention and salience leave an explanatory gap for other systems to fill in. In Bermúdez's analysis, frames impact our decision-making because they highlight features of the choice at hand that align with the “hot” and “cold” cognitive–affective systems (Bermúdez, 2022). Is there, in fact, an explanatory role for the dual process theory here? As agents in complex worlds cannot attend to all relevant information, the salience of certain information can be expected to be predictive of our decision-making, regardless of how it maps onto a dual process conception of cognition. Moreover, decisions are sometimes difficult because the “cold” systems recommend more than one course of action. The framing effect's explanatory power over self-control would scarcely be diminished by considering it without recourse to dual process theories.
The dual process theory is not the only theory whose explanatory force is called into question by the role of information salience in self-control. Much of the literature on self-control has posited a dedicated “willpower,” “ego depletion,” or “muscle” (Baumeister & Exline, Reference Baumeister and Exline1999; Baumeister, Tice, & Vohs, Reference Baumeister, Tice and Vohs2018) or else reduced self-control to inhibitory control (Cohen, Berkman, & Lieberman, Reference Cohen, Berkman, Lieberman, Stuss and Knight2013) or a sequence of cognitive control (Sripada, Reference Sripada2021). The ego depletion hypothesis has been questioned (Inzlicht & Friese, Reference Inzlicht and Friese2019), whereas there are concerns that inhibitory and cognitive control processes are too general to help account for the decisional aspect of self-control. If it is plausible that self-control operates, at least in part, by modulating information salience, future research on self-control should seek to devise means to control for the role of attentional processes in self-control, and to see to what extent there remains an explanatory gap for other proposed mechanisms to fill.
Financial support
This contribution was written in the context of a research project funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland (grant number 335186).
Conflict of interest
None.