Abstract: Self-control failure serves as a unique perspective for studying self control. After an overview of related literatures, the authors summarized that: self-control failure can be explained in the angles of self-control resource depletion, trait self-control, negative mood, cues exposure and group stress; additionally, insufficient activation of prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulated cortex, and excessive activation of amygdala are the neural mechanisms of self-control failure. In line with the previous findings, the authors put forward an interactive model to help better interpret why self-control failure occurs. This model contains three points of view, state and trait, awareness and ability (resource) of self control, and psychological and physical interaction. Future investigation on self-control failure should take effort on improving and expanding studies both on psychological and neural mechanism level, and on discovering life-span developmental characteristics of self-control failure. This article offers insightful perspectives for future study on self-control failure.

Key words: self-control failure, psychological mechanism, neural mechanism, interactive effect