It is well documented that self-control has a positive effect on individuals’ subjective well-being. However, little research has focused on the moderators underlying this relationship. The present research used two studies to examine the moderating role of both trait and state motivation on the relationship between self-control and subjective well-being using psychometric and experimental models, respectively. In Study 1, we explored whether trait motivation moderated the relationship between trait self-control and subjective well-being using a psychometric model. In Study 2, we (...) examined the moderating effects of both trait and state motivation on the effect of state self-control on subjective well-being using an experimental model. Our results indicated that self-control had a positive effect on subjective well-being, with this relationship being primarily moderated by prevention motivation. When state and trait prevention motivations were congruent, self-control had the most obvious impact on subjective well-being. This study suggests that current understandings around the association between self-control and happiness is limited, implying that motivation should be the focus of future research. (shrink)

Aims: Studies have shown the predictive effects of procrastination and self-regulation on wellbeing. However, little is known about the interactive effect between procrastination and self-regulation. This study explores whether self-regulation moderates the link between procrastination and wellbeing among British and Chinese young adults.Methods: This study adopted self-reported questionnaire survey among two hundred and sixty-five British and four hundred and seventy-five Chinese participants. SPSS and AMOS were used to test the moderation effect. Multi-group path analysis was used to compare the two (...) countries.Results: Data analysis shows that self-regulation was a significant moderator of the relationship between procrastination and life satisfaction in the Chinese sample but not in the British sample. Procrastination predicted low life satisfaction only among the Chinese students with low self-regulation.Discussion: This study indicates that the effects of procrastination on wellbeing could be changed at different levels of self-regulation. Cultural difference can be an important factor when investigating procrastination and its impacts. (shrink)

Although several studies provide evidence that trait self-control contributes to subjective well-being, the way in which self-control promotes happiness and life satisfaction remains unknown. The present study aims to shed light on this relation by investigating the mediating role of four self-control strategies: situation selection, attentional deployment, reappraisal, and inhibition. To test the hypothesis that self-control strategies mediate trait self-control’s effect on well-being, an online questionnaire on trait self-control, self-control strategies, and cognitive and affective well-being was administered to 4,036 participants (...) from four countries (ages 18 to 65 and 56.4% female), whose responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Our analysis replicates previous studies that trait self-control positively relates to subjective well-being. Moreover, our analysis provides evidence that this relation is indeed partially mediated by the tendency to employ particular self-control strategies. Attentional deployment and reappraisal positively relate to subjective well-being, whereas inhibition exhibits a negative relation. Situation selection was unrelated to subjective well-being. The incorporation of self-control strategies represents the first attempt to empirically disentangle the positive relation between trait self-control and subjective well-being. The heterogeneous effects of self-control strategies suggest the importance of obtaining a better understanding of which aspects of trait self-control positively contributes to subjective well-being. (shrink)