Maria Dolores Braquehais Conesa, M.D., Ph.D.

Impulsivity is a relatively new concept used mainly since the nineteenth century in the Occidental realm to refer to the old idea of control of passions. Nowadays, impulsivity is studied as a personality dimension as well as a diagnostic category (“Impulse Control Disorders”). From another point of view, neurobiologists believe that impulsivity is linked to a dysfunction of the brain decision-making circuitry and of inhibitory neurotransmitters (mainly, the serotonergic system).

In the last decades, the structure and dynamism of families has been reshaped in both industrialized and post-industrialized societies, in part due to huge and rapid economical and cultural changes. Moreover, contemporary (or post-modern) societies tend to immerse people in a virtual atmosphere of images and simulations, and promote the acting out of desires, including desires that once seemed off-limits to action and experience.

As a result of those adjustments, a new “basic personality”, called by the French psychoanalist Lazartigues (1) “narcissitic-hedonistic”, is said to be replacing the “basic normal/neurotic” one which dominated until the second half of the twentieth century. Lazartigues (1) defines the “narcissistic-hedonistic” subject as an individual more dependent on external objects who finds delay in the achievement of instinctive aims hard to take, is allergic to frustration, and develops a “sensation seeking” pattern of behavior.

Thus, although impulsivity has been related to many psychological factors and psychopathological conditions (2), it can also be said that recent changes in socio-cultural models in high-income countries may be playing a critical role in the increased prevalence of behaviors related to a lack of self-control.

References:

1. Lazartigues A, Planche P, Saint-André S, Morales H. New society, new families: a new basic personality? From the neurotic to the narcissistic-hedonistic personality. Encephale 2007;33(3 Pt 1):293-9.
2. Braquehais MD. El papel de la impulsividad y la agresividad en los intentos de suicidio. Universidad de Alcalá de Henares; 2006.