Freedom of choice is an essential assumption of society, which is deeply founded in the legal system and the theories of ethics. As individuals have freedom of choice, they have a moral responsibility for their actions and deserve to face the consequences of their behaviors. In the freedom of choice, several theories can be applied to assess individuals' ability to make or avoid choices. More particularly, the reactance theory establishes that people have freedom of choice and, therefore, negatively react when their options are taken away. While freedom of choice is the ability to choose between alternative courses of action, self-control is the capacity of an individual to overcome internal urges and desires. Self-control is an important form of what individuals understand as freedom of choice. This paper aims to show that freedom of choice is essential for people to practice self-control.
Reactance Theory
Generally, individuals hold the belief that they have specific freedoms to take part in the behaviors that are available to them. However, they are periods or situations in which they cannot engage in these behaviors or have the feeling that they are unable to (Rosenberg et al., 2018). Situations like this involve purchasing a particular commodity in the grocery store or paying tuition fees (Muhlberger et al., 2019). Reactance typically occurs in these situations once individuals believe that their choices have been taken away. Reactance is an unpleasant motivation desire that occurs when individuals perceive their free behaviors are being threatened (Baumeister et al., 2010). It acts as motivation for an individual to restore the freedoms that have been taken away. The level of reactance depends on the significance of the choices taken away and the perception of the threat by an individual. These threats establish barriers to the freedom of an individual.
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The interest in the preservation of options is the main element of the reactance theory. In a state of reactance, an individual is motivated to reestablish their freedoms through various efforts (Muhlberger et al., 2019). People that are threatened typically have feelings characterized by a lack of comfort, hostility, and anger. Behaviorally, individuals who are threatened may display restricted behavior, which is also referred to as direct restoration (Rosenberg et al., 2018). These individuals may also view others performing a related behavior, which is referred to as indirect restoration. They may aggressively force the individual posing a threat to take the threat away or display behavior that is hostile and aggressive as a way of letting off the negative emotions that they feel (Baumeister et al., 2010). Cognitively, people may detract from the threat's origin, enhance the freedom that has been restricted, or downgrading the option that has been imposed.
Hence, reactance can be identified as having three consequences. First, reactance makes individuals perceive the forbidden option as being more attractive. Second, reactance may cause an individual to take measures to enable them to reclaim control, also referred to as freedom reassertion. Third, an individual may react with aggression towards the individual who has restricted their freedom. Hence, reactance influences an individual's capacity to control their internal urges and desires based on the availability of restriction of freedom of choice.
Influences on Choices Made
Social psychologists have established that most individuals make choices in two steps. One of the steps involves limiting a wide range of choices to just a few. The second step involves a thorough analysis and comparison of the available options that have been highlighted. When choosing between options, people typically focus on quantitative distinctions (Stankevich, 2017). Several patterns can be identified as guiding the choices that people follow. One of these patterns is risk aversion, which can be defined as a preference for certainty as opposed to uncertainty. People are greatly affected by the possibility of losses than the possibility of gains. Most individuals are unwilling to take part in uncertain situations due to the potential losses that they may incur (Baumeister et al., 2010). People have a higher likelihood of making decisions or choices when the potential gains are clear. People are often rational, but when they are not, their irrational behavior is directed towards the avoidance of losses as opposed to the pursuit of gains. This means that individuals seem more worried concerning the loss they may experience than they were attracted by the possibility of winning.
Temporal discounting is a second influence that occurs when a person views what happens now as weighing more than what may occur in the future. While the logical choice in most decisions may be choices with delayed rewards that are greater, most individuals make choices that are characterized by immediate rewards (Stankevich, 2017). The discounting of the future is commonly observed in situational contexts involving money but may also be observed in other contexts. A third influence is the certainty effect, in which some aspects of a decision include possibilities and odds while others are characterized by certainty (Zhou et al., 2019). Most people tend to place great weight on things characterized by certainty, which means that they rely more on certain features than they mean to do (Baumeister et al., 2010). The placing of too much emphasis on definite outcomes is referred to as the certainty effect. The last influence is the tendency to keep options open. Some people have a preference for postponing hard decisions and keeping their options open for an extended time. As opposed to deciding on the present, an individual may decide to divide their time and efforts to preserve their options.
Importance to Social Psychology
For an extended time, freedom of choice has been debated within philosophy. Several arguments have been placed forward favoring or being against the compatibility with deterministic freedom. In social psychology, there is an argument that autonomous and free action regulation is highly valuable to research on welfare and motivation. The assessment of freedom of choice is essential for productive engagement with the topic of human freedom. There has also been an operationalization of free and less-free actions regarding capacities such as self-control, and that changes in the belief of freedom of choice already affect moral behavior.
Decisions can be viewed as self-control to the degree to which conscious deliberations will affect it. Self-control has often been argued as one of the essential skills that can differentiate humans from animals due to the ability to resist temptations and break habits. At times, individuals can exercise a high level of self-control and are able to push their impulses in a completely different direction (Corbellini et al., 2020). In other situations, individuals are greatly determined by impulses, and conscious reasoning can only make minimal shifts to their behavior. Self-control can, therefore, defined as the gradual influence of conscious deliberations on their decisions. Self-control is highly relevant to the debate concerning the freedom of choice.
This relevance can be observed through the application of self-control to the compatibilist position and an incompatibilist position. According to compatibilists, freedom of choice results from self-controlled decision-making (Carvalho, 2016). This perspective further identifies that self-control is a gradual capability, then it follows that choices can be free at different levels. Self-control as a condition for freedom of choice can be used to account for the fact that individuals experience different behaviors that are not free such as reflexes and strongly impulsive actions (Brezina, 2019). These behaviors cannot be prohibited through conscious considerations or deliberate reasoning, which means they lack self-control.
Self-control can also be applied to the incompatibilist perspective. While incompatibilists emphasize the principle of alternative possibilities, most incompatibilists also specify the condition of self-control (Carvalho, 2016). Incompatibilists state that an agent enjoys freed of action only if their actions result from preference. Hence, this field in social psychology is critical to contributing to social psychology’s engagement with freedom.
Current Impact on My Life
My freedom of choice has had a considerable impact on several aspects of my life, such as my interactions with each other, making new habits, and changing existing habits. On a social scale, social norms, cultures, and different media types present various choices that individuals can choose from. Based on this variety of choices, self-control then becomes essential for determining the choices and decisions individuals make. For instance, one of the varieties of choices that I have each day is the type of outfit to wear, the clothes to choose, the color, and even the size of what I want to wear. Every day, based on my preferences and desires, I then choose what type of outfit would be ultimately optimal for the day. For instance, during the weekend, I may have the desire to wear a casual and light outfit due to conditions such as favorable weather and my preference. However, suppose I have an official meeting with my colleagues. In that case, I have to apply a degree of self-control to limit my desire for s specific outfit and instead, wear clothes that would be more suitable for the meeting.
Secondly, the practice of self-control has been critical in helping me develop new habits. I recently decided to change my eating habits and be more focused on eating healthy instead of bingeing on unhealthy food. I had become used to regularly consuming junk food and not paying enough attention to the quality of food that I put into my body. After realizing the benefits that healthy eating habits would present to me, I decided to forfeit my junk food choices. Despite wanting to be healthier in my food choices, I still had the urge and desire to consume junk food. Hence, I had to practice self-control to create new habits that I believed would be advantageous to me. As individuals are free to decide and choose according to their greatest desire, then self-control acts as an application of the freedom of choice.
Lastly, self-control has been highly influential in how I engage with others. Despite having the ability to react the way I want to different social situations, the application of self-control helps me to behave less impulsively. This includes actions such as not blurting things out inappropriately and acting before I react to the choices and decisions that are made by others. The use of self-control has helped me to resolve conflict peacefully while helping me to react positively to my peers.
Potential Impact in the Future
I believe that the application of self-control to my freedom of choices will be highly useful to my future. As already stated, the application of self-control has helped me in the development of healthy habits. This will continue to be essential to me in the future in helping me understand the importance of new habits and how to take better care of myself. Apart from the change in habits, the application of self-control will also be critical in two essential aspects of my future, which include money management and emotion regulation. Firstly, self-control will be critical in helping me to save and spend wisely. While having the freedom of choice on how to spend my money, I can apply self-control to make better financial decisions in my future.
Self-control will also support my emotional development in the future by facilitating the better regulation of my emotions. The regulation of my emotions will help me to express my feelings in healthy ways by enabling me to cope with upsetting feelings while learning how to manage positive feelings. This is more likely to make me successful with relationships and with the advancement of my career.
Conclusion
Freedom of choice is an essential concept of the societal framework that is ingrained with legal and ethical conclusions. Freedom of choice is essential for people to practice self-control as it emphasizes people's ability to exercise the freedoms of choice within their reach. According to the reactance theory, when people feel that these freedoms are threatened, they typically react aggressively. There are several patterns that can be identified as influencing the choices that people make. These patterns include an aversion to risk, temporary discounting, the certainty effect, and a tendency to keep options open. The relationship between freedom of choice and self-control is essential to the field of social psychology as it facilitates the further evaluation of the field's engagement with freedom. Over the years, this relationship has helped me to change my habits while also influencing how I interact with others. In the future, I believe that my understanding of the freedom of choice and self-control will continue to affect me in the same way while also helping me to improve in areas, such as money management, that I am yet to work on.
References
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