We have shown how environmental and psychological factors (ingestion of alcohol, ego depletion, substance-related cues, and stressors) can increase disinhibition. In this section we discuss “internal” factors, such as motivation and mental set, which are also known to alter disinhibition. Behavioral measures of disinhibition, in particular the Stop Signal task, set up a response conflict (a competition) between speed and accuracy (80). This response conflict can be experimentally manipulated, resulting in fluctuating disinhibition (81). For example, Leotti and Wager (82) propose that there are marked individual differences in the aversion to making mistakes, and these influence how a person would respond when completing a Stop Signal task. Imagine a person who is extremely averse to making mistakes: for this person, the conflict between responding rapidly and avoiding inhibition errors would be tipped in favor of avoiding inhibition errors, and this person would have a strategic bias that means they would make (relatively) few inhibition errors if they were to perform a Stop Signal task. It is possible to alter participants’ strategic biases when they perform these tasks, for example by
