Carrying on or giving in: the role of automatic processes in overcoming ego depletion.
Research has shown that repeated exercise of self-control leads to impaired performance on subsequent self-control tasks, a phenomenon labelled ego depletion. The current research investigates the influence of automatic processes on self-control performance. Study 1 shows that activation of persistence leads to stable self-control performance and may help to overcome effects of ego depletion. Initially depleted participants kept their physical self-control performances constant when primed with persistence. If such a prime was absent, self-control performance of depleted participants decreased indicating ego depletion. Using a different manipulation, these findings were replicated in Study 2.
Alberts
Hugo J E M
HJ
Universiteit Maastricht, Faculty of Psychology, Experimental Psychololgy, PO box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. j.alberts@psychology.unimaas.nl
Martijn
Carolien
C
Greb
Judith
J
Merckelbach
Harald
H
de Vries
Nanne K
NK
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001332:Automatism; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept