Abstract
What effects do motivation and beliefs have on self-control? We tested this question using a limited resource paradigm, which generally has found that people show poor self-control after prior exertions of self-control. Recent findings have suggested that motivation and even belief in unlimited willpower can render persons immune to ego depletion. We replicated those findings, but also showed they are limited to cases of mild depletion. When depletion is extensive, the effects of motivation and subjective belief vanished and in one case reversed. After performing only one self-control task, the typical pattern of self-regulation impairment was ameliorated among people who were encouraged to regard willpower as unlimited (Experiment 1) or motivated by task importance (Experiment 2). Those manipulations failed to improve performance among severely depleted persons who had done multiple self-control tasks. These findings integrate ideas of limited resources, motivation, and beliefs in understanding the nature of self-control over time.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 184-188 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs |
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State | Published - Jan 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported in part by University of Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professorship Funds , National Institutes of Health grant 1RL1AA017541 , and National Science Foundation grant BCS-0921276 . We thank Nick Olson, Kelsi Dehler, and Yajin Wang for assistance.
Keywords
- Ego depletion
- Lay beliefs
- Motivation
- Self-control
- Self-regulation