Stirling Workshop on Self-Control and Public Policy

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Stirling Workshop on Self-Control and Public Policy (Friday, September 15th)

Self-control is the human capacity that enables people to control short-term impulses and desires in order to achieve long-term goals. This workshop brings together different perspectives in order to outline the implications of self-control for a range of policy issues spanning the areas of health, education, labour, and welfare policy. The speakers combine theoretical and methodological approaches from economics and psychology in novel ways to generate new approaches to policy problems, move forward in affecting change in these problems, and further uncover the policy implications of self-control.

Themes that will be discussed at the workshop include:

– Measurement of self-control for policy research.
– Capitalising more fully on the information collected in large-scale government surveys to

understand the development of self-control and its lifespan implications.
– Economic, health, and welfare consequences of different degrees of self-control.

– The effectiveness and scalability of interventions to improve self-control.

– Understanding self-control in the context of everyday life and social interactions.

– The relationship between environmental cues, ‘nudge’ interventions and trait self- control.

Event Programme

08.45-09.15: COFFEE

09.15-09.30: Opening and Registration

09.30-10.00: Ailbhe Booth (UCD) Examining disciplinary perspectives on self-regulation

10.00-10.30: Terry Ng-Knight (UCL) Predictors of self-control during childhood

10.30-11.00: Michael Daly (Stirling) Lifespan outcomes of childhood self-control

11.00-11.30: COFFEE