Metamotivational Understanding of the Role of High-Level and Low-Level Construal in Self-Control and Behavior Execution

Given that motivation drives self-regulation, we explore people’s knowledge of motivational orientations for different self-regulation challenges. Several experiments show that people distinguish self-control from behavioral execution. Remarkably, people also recognize that high (vs. low) level construal facilitates self-control (vs. behavioral execution). Future research will explore how knowledge predicts self-regulation success.