After people exert self-control, self-control performance on subsequent tasks tends to suffer, as if the capacity for self-control was depleted by the prior exertion. The present paper discusses self-control depletion and how people may overcome it. We searched the psychology literature and found nearly 40 empirical articles documenting diverse traits and strategies that counteract depletion, thereby facilitating self-control success. The evidence points to two major strategies for overcoming depletion. The first strategy involves offsetting the high amount of effort required for self-control (e.g., introducing a brief period of rest). The second involves compensating for the low immediate rewards that most self-control tasks offer (e.g., providing an additional incentive for exerting self-control). These strategies can be interpreted neatly within the framework of recent motivational accounts of self-control depletion. This analysis may inform those aiming to improve self-control success or simply to understand and anticipate when and why self-control depletion occurs.
Previous research has shown that political attitudes are highly heritable, but the proximal physiological mechanisms that shape ideology remain largely unknown. Based on work suggesting possible ideological differences in genes related to low-level sensory processing, we predicted that taste (i.e., gustatory) sensitivity would be associated with political ideology. In 4 studies (combined N = 1,639) we test this hypothesis and find robust support for this association. In Studies 1–3, we find that sensitivity to the chemicals PROP and PTC—2 well established measures of taste sensitivity—are associated with greater political conservatism. In Study 4, we find that fungiform papilla density, a proxy for taste bud density, also predicts greater conservatism, and that this association is partially statistically mediated by disgust sensitivity. This work suggests that low-level physiological differences in sensory processing may shape an individual’s political attitudes.
Three studies examined the relationship between people's moral values (drawing on moral foundations theory) and their willingness to censor immoral acts from children. Results revealed that diverse moral values did not predict censorship judgments. It was not the case that participants who valued loyalty and authority, respectively, sought to censor depictions of disloyal and disobedient acts. Rather, censorship intentions were predicted by a single moral value-sanctity. The more people valued sanctity, the more willing they were to censor from children, regardless of the types of violations depicted (impurity, disloyalty, disobedience, etc.). Furthermore, people who valued sanctity objected to indecent exposure only to apparently innocent and pure children-those who were relatively young and who had not been previously exposed to immoral acts. These data suggest that sanctity, purity, and the preservation of innocence underlie intentions to censor from young children.
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