Inhibition (level) meaning:

the amount to which you hold back or control a behavior or impulse (a sudden urge to act), either consciously or subconsciously.

What constructs inhibition?

• self-control

• emotional control

• defensiveness

• obsessional thinking

The 3 main things that control inhibition level:

1. Nature

2. Nurture

3. Society

Nature:

Gene estimates:

• Temperamental inhibition (~40–50% heritable)

• Self-control (~50–60% heritable)

• Impulsivity (~40–60% heritable)

Neurobiology:

The prefrontal cortex helps manage thinking and emotions (controlling self-control and emotional control).

It forms throughout childhood and keeps developing in teen years into your mid-20s, building up those controls in that time period.

Nature controls the baseline of your inhibition level, it’s nurture and/or society that either adds or lowers your inhibition level.

Your baseline can lower naturally from being NeuroDivergent mainly things such as…

• ADHD

• Autism

• OCD

My ADHD experience:

I used to be the class clown all throughout elementary and middle school and it was pretty fucking bad (part of freshmen year too), but now I’m too high inhib, and that’s because these recent years my ADHD started making me overly aware of things socially and now I just overthink everything.

Nurture:

Self-control plays a big role in positive youth development (even by age 3).

In some cases, studies showed harsher parenting leads to lower self-control and emotional control; educated parenting leads to high self-control and emotional control.

Parenting is associated with children’s self-control and can be the reason for why they parent the way they do.

Society:

Peers/norms:

Children surrounded by peers with high self-control later show higher self-control themselves, compared to those surrounded by peers with low self-control, and vice versa.

“Peers are important socialization agents in late childhood and adolescence and influence development across multiple outcomes.”

For children and adolescents (the ages before turning into an adult) , peer reactions often shape behavior through positive or negative feedback, meaning peers can affect emotional control and self-control.

Hierarchy/roles:

Hierarchies often form around visibility, confidence, social skill, athletic ability, or attractiveness. Meaning your position in a social hierarchy influences when and how your inhibition shows. This can cause obsessional thinking too.

my IRL experience W this you can DNR: I was sitting far from everyone in the class like the high inhib loser I am and I look up just observing the class, I notice the chubby manlet band kid was with the NT kids (most of them are genuinely popular at my school) and the loser had the audacity to make fun of the autist in the class (passively) with the NT kids

but I knew right away this is because that’s all he can do for validation from the NT kids because he will sadly go to that extent just to fit in with the low inhib kids who have a status.

Basically it’s impossible to be neurotypical and conventionally attractive while being high inhib so you’re probably just not good looking✌️✌️✌️

Media:

Water, but obviously the “cool” and conventionally attractive people seen in mainstream media make people want to copy those trends. Some kids just don’t got a chance to be naturally low inhib because media makes them compare themselves to what’s seen as cool. (We just don’t got the genes for it, obviously.)

Primary example of this is the 2020 TikTok pretty boys:

We both know all girls wanted was a guy like this and all guys wanted was to look like this🤦‍♂️

———————————

Personally I think it’s better off to be inbetween high and low inhib. If you’re high inhib you’re probably unconventionally attractive, neurodivergent, or have niche interests.

—————————