Self-Control in Animals and People

Self-Control in Animals and People takes an interdisciplinary look at what self-control is, how it works, and whether humans are alone as a species in their ability to demonstrate self-control. The book outlines historical and recent empirical approaches to understanding when self-control succeeds and fails, and which species may share with humans the ability to anticipate better future outcomes. It also provides readers with in-depth explorations of whether various species can delay gratification, the ways in which people and animals exhibit other forms of self-control, what influences the capacity and expression of self-control, and much more. In addition to its comprehensive coverage of self-control research, the book also describes self-control assessment tests that can be used with young children, adults, and a wide variety of nonhuman species, with the goal of making fair and clear comparisons among the groups. This combination makes Self-Control in Animals and People a valuable resource for cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychologists, philosophers, academic students and researchers in psychology and the social sciences, and animal behaviorists. - Provides a comprehensive perspective of the evolutionary emergence of self-control across species - Explores different 'kinds' of self-control and their links to one another, and whether self-control can be improved or strengthened - Offers insight on mental time travel (chronesthesia) and how it relates to self-control - Demonstrates how to develop self-control tests for human and nonhuman animals, and how to make fair and clear comparisons among those groups

Michael Beran is an associate professor of psychology at Georgia State University. He is a cognitive psychologist with 21 years of experience working with nonhuman primates, young children, human adults, and other species such as birds, bears, and elephants. His research on self-control and future-oriented cognition has been supported by grants from the NIH and NSF. He is the editor or co-editor of eight major journals in the fields of comparative and cognitive science, and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles (and more than 250 total publications) on aspects of human and animal cognition, including dozens of papers on self-control.