Impulsive people: their 5 characteristic traits and habits

We help you to recognize this personal characteristic of those who do not know how to wait.

To what extent are we capable of controlling our emotional and passionate side? Most human beings are capable of controlling their impulses, since experience and learning teach us that sacrificing everything to satisfy a need immediately does not usually pay off.

However, in some cases this is only half-learned. The fact is that there are a lot of impulsive peoplepeople with serious difficulties in confronting this kind of desires. In this article we will see what are the habits and traits of this type of psychological profile and how to explain their actions.

This is what impulsive people are like

Among the traits, habits and propensities of impulsive people are the following.

1. They do not tolerate waiting well

One of the most important psychological traits is the capacity for delay of gratificationThis has to do with what is our limit when it comes to refraining from enjoying ourselves in the present in order to enjoy more in the future. This is a characteristic that is absent in children of a few years of age but that, as we grow up, is being improved.

Impulsive people tend to have a greater capacity for delayed gratification than young children, but relatively low for adults. This is noticeable in their propensity to manage their money, to consume food and even to relate to other people (many times we must make sacrifices to improve our social insertion).

2. They fall into procrastination

Procrastination is the habit of putting off for another day what should be done in the present (or even in the past, and has not yet been done). In other words, constantly putting off an obligation or responsibility.

Usually, this goes hand in hand with a feeling of loss of control, as if a mysterious force is pushing us not to perform a task even though rationally we know we should do it now. In many cases, this action is rationalized after a while, creating a pseudo-rational argument that allows us to feel better about ourselves.

Impulsive people are notorious procrastinators, and that is why it is very common for them to fail to meet their commitments within the agreed deadlines, on the one hand, or to do it badly, due to poor time management.

3. They show compensatory behaviors

The fact of constantly giving in to impulsivity causes more problems to be added to the problems that life already presents us with. Faced with situations of frustrationIn situations of frustration, impulsive people show a greater tendency to fall into compensatory behaviors.

This type of actions are a way of release anxiety in an unreflective, automatic and immediate way.. For example, touching their hair a lot, walking in circles, or, typically, eating.

Unplanned visits to the kitchen are a habit that marks the daily life of impulsive people. The possibility of "distracting" oneself by consuming sweet or carbohydrate-rich products is very seductive for those who feel anxiety and stress but cannot find a way to put an end to the source of this state, as this would entail meeting medium- or long-term goals.

On the other hand, in some cases these compensatory actions can become so severe that they are clinically significant, evolving into, for example, trichotillomania, bulimia nervosa or cutting (phenomena that can have many other causes).

4. They are prone to anger

The conflicts in which it is easy that our emotions of anger are expressed are a trap for the impulsive persons, since it is difficult for them to maintain a constructive attitude that allows to transform the conflict into a fit between positions with own interests. In other words, they easily fall into anger..

This means that in a conflict the non-impulsive party is at an advantage, since its range of possible reactions is greater and, at the same time, it can better predict the behavior of the impulsive party.

Of course, another implication of this is that impulsive people are bad at mediating arguments, since they will easily take a stand against someone.

5. Impulsive buying tendency

All marketing in general is aimed at commercializing products or services by making certain conditions are met so that what is offered is available and irresistible.

Impulsive people are unusually easy to convince to pay for something for which they to pay for something they didn't even think about when they started their shopping spree.. Something as simple as the right packaging or a catchy slogan can be enough to get them to take action. The same goes for "bargain deals", as they add a reason to buy on the spot without much thought.

How can impulsivity be explained?

There are several theories that try to explain the phenomenon of impulsivity. One of the first and most remembered, for example, is that of Sigmund Freud, according to whom impulsivity is the embodiment of the power that the Ego has over the Ego and the Superego.

However, today the most accepted explanation is that impulsivity is the consequence of an underdeveloped executive system. The executive system is the set of neural networks involved in the management of attention and goal setting. and goal setting.

While short-term goals are sufficiently influenced by the limbic system, long-term goals depend on abstract reasoning processes that are sometimes not strong enough to delay the satisfaction of a need.