Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns.

Abstract

If self-regulation conforms to an energy or strength model, then self-control should be impaired by prior exertion. In Study 1, trying to regulate one's emotional response to an upsetting movie was followed by a decrease in physical stamina. In Study 2, suppressing forbidden thoughts led to a subsequent tendency to give up quickly on unsolvable anagrams. In Study 3, suppressing thoughts impaired subsequent efforts to control the expression of amusement and enjoyment. In Study 4, autobiographical accounts of successful versus failed emotional control linked prior regulatory demands and fatigue to self-regulatory failure. A strength model of self-regulation fits the data better than activation, priming, skill, or constant capacity models of self-regulation.The capacity of the human organism to override, interrupt, and otherwise alter its own responses is one of the most dramatic and impressive functions of human selfhood, with broad implications for a wide range of behavior patterns (Carver & Scheier, 1981;Wegner & Pennebaker, 1993). For example, self-regulation has been associated with crime and criminal behavior (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), smoking (Russell, 1971), and dieting (Herman & Polivy, 1975). Men with better self-control are less likely to become divorced (Kelly & Conley, 1987). Children who are better at delaying gratification tend to be calmer, to resist frustration better, to be less irritable and aggressive, to concentrate better, and to get higher grades in school than children who are less able to delay gratification (Funder & Block, 1989;Funder, Block, & Block, 1983). Additionally, children who were better able to control themselves could deal with stress better in adolescence and had higher SAT scores when applying to college (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). It is clear that self-control is related to success in many aspects of life.Furthermore, the failure of self-control has immense personal and societal repercussions (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). Breakdowns in self-control are linked with depression (Beck, 1976;Pyszczynski, Holt, & Greenberg, 1987;Wenzlaff, Wegner, & Roper, 1988), obsessive or ruminative thoughts (Martin & Tesser, 1989;Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987), and aggression (Baumeister, 1997;Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;Tice & Baumeister, 1993;Zillman, 1993). concluded that many of the problems facing both individuals and society today, ranging from unprotected sexual behavior to addiction to school underachievement, involve regulatory failure. Therefore a deeper understanding of how, why, and when self-control breaks down is highly desirable.The purpose of this article is to examine one central reason why self-control may fail. We propose that people have a limited capacity for self-regulation, akin to having a limited supply of strength or energy. One central prediction of any such model is that exertion will be followed by a period of diminished capacity. Therefore, when people engage in self-regulation, they should show subsequent decrements on other tasks ...

Be better or be merry: How mood affects self-control.

“…An experimenter approached participants and invited them to participate in a study investigating whether demographic factors are related to overall fitness levels among students. Following a procedure that Muraven et al (1998) developed, the experimenter took two handgrip measures of each participant, one before and one after the experimental manipulation.…”

“…We adopted this task from previous self-control studies, and it has been shown to require self-control (e.g., Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998). We further expected that happy participants with a mood management goal would perform no differently from control participants with a similar goal because both groups should be deterred from performing a task that is incongruent with the goal prime.…”

Self‐Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior

“…Accumulating findings suggest that self-regulation operates on the basis of a limited resource that resembles a form of strength or energy. An early pair of investigations by Muraven, Tice, and Baumeister (1998) and Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, and Tice (1998) pitted three models of self-regulatory change against each other, using competing predictions as to what would happen on a second self-regulatory task as the result of having already performed a first self-regulatory task. First, a cognitive schema model might have predicted improvement on the second task as a result of priming the self-regulatory schema.…”

The cognitive and hedonic costs of dwelling on achievement-related negative experiences: Implications for enduring happiness and unhappiness.

“…Not surprisingly, ruminative, intrusive thoughts have been found to deplete people's cognitive resources, tax short-term memory (Krames & MacDonald, 1985), and impair their abilities to concentrate on task-relevant cognitions and behaviors (Martin & Tesser, 1989;Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998;Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes, & Shearin, 1986). For example, in a series of studies, dysphoric students induced to ruminate about themselves and their moods spent more time completing both important and trivial academic tasks and reported having more difficulty concentrating while performing those tasks than dysphoric students induced to distract themselves (Lyubomirsky, Kasri, & Zehm, 2003).…”