Inhibition is considered a process essential to goal pursuit and as a result has become a central construct in many disciplines in psychology and adjacent fields. Despite a century’s worth of debate, however, there is little consensus about what inhibition actually is. We suggest that it is time to abandon the concept of inhibition as it currently stands, given that its definition has been problematic. Instead, we propose an alternative framework in which inhibition is the target outcome, rather than a process to obtain a goal. We leverage existing process models to elucidate how people can achieve an inhibition goal by actively regulating impulses and desires. Although the field has been led astray by classifying inhibition as a process, our framework is intended to provide greater practical utility to the study of goal pursuit moving forward.

抑制被认为是追求目标所必需的过程，因此已成为心理学和相邻领域许多学科的核心结构。然而，尽管进行了一个世纪的辩论，但对于抑制到底是什么几乎没有达成共识。我们建议现在是时候放弃目前的抑制概念了，因为它的定义一直存在问题。相反，我们提出了一个替代框架，其中抑制是目标结果，而不是获得目标的过程。我们利用现有的过程模型来阐明人们如何通过积极调节冲动和欲望来实现抑制目标。尽管通过将抑制归类为一个过程而使该领域误入歧途，但我们的框架旨在为前进的目标追求研究提供更大的实用性。