Self-Regulation and Sexual Restraint: Dispositionally and Temporarily Poor Self-Regulatory Abilities Contribute to Failures at Restraining Sexual Behavior

Abstract

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Roy Baumeister, an extraordinary adviser and mentor, whose knowledge, encouragement and patience were vital throughout the development of this project.In addition, I thank my committee members Dianne Tice and Rob Contreras for their constructive comments and guidance.

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

“…First, self-regulatory goals are highly important to many individuals , and it is therefore questionable that people would relinquish such important goals so as to reward themselves. Secondly, depleted individuals often relinquish self-control in ways that do not seem rewarding, such as yelling at one's romantic partner (Finkel & Campbell, 2001), or seem to be an inappropriate reward, such as preferring to engage in extradyadic sex (Gailliot & Baumeister, 2005). The most comprehensive and parsimonious conclusion for the data is thus that self-control operates akin to a muscle or strength.…”

“…Consistent with that reasoning, a laboratory study by Gailliot and Baumeister (2005) assessed sexual history, manipulated depletion by means of having some couples engage in an attention control task (ignoring peripheral stimuli while watching a video), and then invited them to express any degree of physical affection (e.g., hugging, holding hands) for each other in a private laboratory room. Sexual history interacted with depletion to predict the level of physical intimacy achieved by the couples in the laboratory.…”

“…For example, when people have exerted some of their self-regulatory strength on an initial task, they subsequently are less successful at difficult reasoning and thinking problems (Schmeichel, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2003), more prone to spend money impulsively (Vohs & Faber, 2004), show higher levels of aggressive responding (Stucke & Baumeister, 2006), drink more alcohol even when anticipating a driving test (Muraven, Collins, & Nienhaus, 2002), perform inappropriate or undercontrolled sexual behaviors (Gailliot & Baumeister, 2005), rely on simplistic strategies for making judgments and decisions (Amir, Dhar, Pocheptsova, & Baumeister, 2005), and present themselves in ways less likely to make a good impression (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005). Likewise, dieters are more prone to break their diets and eat fattening foods when depleted (Vohs & Heatherton, 2000).…”

“…Receiving positive performance feedback presumably increased self-efficacy, yet it did not reduce the effect of depletion. Likewise, studies that have assessed perceptions of self-efficacy have found no evidence that selfefficacy is related to depletion (e.g., Gailliot & Baumeister, 2005).…”

“…One study found that ego depletion interacted with sociosexuality to predict sexual infidelity (Gailliot & Baumeister, 2005). Specifically, participants either completed an initial task requiring self-control (i.e., overriding a previously learned routine of crossing out letters) or did a simpler task that did not require self-regulation.…”