Any account of self-regulation or self-control according to a particular theoretical perspective must begin with a discussion of what its proponents mean when they speak of self-regulation. Most theories of self-control advance a view of human behavior that is to one degree or another self-determined. It is a view much like the relationship between a pilot and his airplane, where the pilot is the 'self" who performs some operation from "within" to direct or control the plane's course or behavior. Beginning with this assumption obligates these theorists to describe, speculate, or otherwise account for the operations performed by the self, be they cognitions or exercises of free will, of which self-regulated behavior is believed to be a function.