Predictors of adult humans' self-control and impulsiveness for food reinforcers.

Humans vary in the degree to which they demonstrate self-control--choice of larger, more delayed over smaller, less delayed reinforcers. When reinforcers consist of food, individual human subjects' choice behavior varies from virtually exclusive self-control to exclusive impulsiveness. The present experiment, using 26 men and 26 women subjects, explored some possible sources of this individual variation through assessing the correlation of behaviors exhibited in the self-control paradigm with various subject characteristics. The results suggest that self-control is negatively related to individuals' reported susceptibility to hunger (Factor 3 of the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire) and positively related to overall rating of juice desirability, but not to gender or to various measures of caloric deprivation or personality. Relatively high self-perceived levels of food deprivation may decrease self-control, whereas assigning a relatively high value to the reinforcer may increase self-control. Both tendencies would have been adaptive for evolving humans.