Uncovering the structure of self-regulation through data-driven ontology discovery

Psychological sciences have identified a wealth of cognitive processes and behavioral phenomena, yet struggle to produce cumulative knowledge. Progress is hamstrung by siloed scientific traditions and a focus on explanation over prediction, two issues that are particularly damaging for the study of multifaceted constructs like self-regulation. Here, we derive a psychological ontology from a study of individual differences across a broad range of behavioral tasks, self-report surveys, and self-reported real-world outcomes associated with self-regulation. Though both tasks and surveys putatively measure self-regulation, they show little empirical relationship. Within tasks and surveys, however, the ontology…

• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Awards: UH2DA041713, P30DA029926
• SR
  Stanford Research Computing Center, Stanford University
• NI
  National Institute on Drug Abuse

  Awards: UH2DA041713, P30DA029926
• CF
  Common Fund