Between persistence and flexibility

Traditional approaches to action control assume the existence of a more or less unitary control system that struggles with, and serves to overcome action tendencies induced by automatic processes. In this article, I point out that and why these approaches fail to capture the complexity and dynamics of cognitive control. I describe an alternative approach that assumes that control emerges from the interaction of at least two counteracting forces: one system promoting persistence and the maintenance of action goals and another promoting mental and behavioral flexibility. I describe how this interaction might be shaped by various factors, including genetic predisposition, learning, personal experience, and the cultural context, and suggest a simple functional model (the Control State Model) that explains how this shaping process works. Then I provide an overview of studies from various fields (including perception, attention, performance monitoring, conflict resolution, creativity, meditation, religion, and interpersonal perception and behavior) that successfully tested predictions from the Control State Model.