Designing for Self Control
Controlling (or more broadly regulating) our own behaviors in the face of powerful thoughts, emotions, memories and cravings is one of the central challenges in modern society. It is also one of the reasons for bothering with cognitive design. Designing to enable self-control is a foundational challenge for cognitive designers.
That is why I am always on the lookout for new scientific studies with designable insights into cognition and neurology of self control/regulation. Just found a new brain scanning study on cocaine users from the Brookhaven National Lab that may settle a long standing issue. The study found that cocaine user’s can control cravings for the drug even after they have been exposed to cues that trigger the craving. This is an important finding because often it is assumed that once exposed to a cue or trigger our capacity for self control approaches zero. As the researchers state:
“Many current drug treatment programs help addicted individuals predict when and where they might be exposed to drug cues so that they can avoid such situations,” Volkow said. “While this is a very useful strategy, in real-word situations, cues may come up in unexpected ways. Our findings suggest that a clinical strategy that trains cocaine abusers to exert greater cognitive control could help them selectively inhibit the craving response whenever and wherever drug cues are encountered — whether expectedly or unexpectedly.”
So there is scientific evidence to encourage the design of post-cue self control strategies even when faced with something as powerful as the craving for cocaine.
