Self-Regulation Tutorial 03
What is ego depletion?
BAUMEISTER, R.F., BRATSLAVSKY, E., MURAVEN, M., & TICE, D.
(1998). EGO DEPLETION: IS THE ACTIVE SELF A LIMITED
RESOURCE?
What is the core idea behind ego depletion?
- Ego depletion is the self´s acts of volition (wil) draw on some limited
resources, thus a acts of volition will have a detrimental impact on
subsequent volition (Worden de wilsdaden van het zelf gebruik gemaakt
van een beperkte hulpbron, dan zal één wilsdaad een nadelige invloed
hebben op de daaropvolgende wil)
- You only have so much will-power, that you can not say no to everything,
for example
- A preliminary act of self-control in the form of resisting temptation
(which is shown in experiment 1) or a preliminary act of choice and
responsibility (which is shown in experiment 2) would undermine self-
regulation in a subsequent, unrelated (difficult/frustrating) domain task
→ In short, if resisting the temptation to eat chocolate can leave a person prone to
give up faster on a difficult and frustrating puzzle, that would suggest that those
two very different acts of self-control draw on the same limited resource
= when you have the will-power to stay away from one thing, means that
you do not have enough energy in different domains
Ego depletion;
Ego depletion is a temporary reduction in the self´s capacity or willingness to
engage in volitional action (incl. controlling the environment, controlling the self,
, making choices + initiation action) caused by prior exercise of volition
- Freud came up with the notion that “volition depends on the self’s expenditure
of some limited resource”
→ he thought the ego needed to have some form of energy to accomplish its tasks + to
resist the energetic promptings of id + superego
→ he is fond of the analogy of a horse + rider
A horse is a wild creature, and the rider needs to tame that horse
An important early study by Glass, Singer & Friedmann (1969) found that
participants exposed to unpredictable noise stress subsequently showed
decrements in frustration tolerance, as measured by persistence on unsolvable
problems. Glass et al. concluded that adapting to unpredictable stress involves a
"psychic cost," which implies an expenditure or depletion of some valuable
resource
Additional evidence for a strength model was provided by Muraven, Tice +
Baumeister (1998): sought to show that consecutive exertions of self-regulation
were characterized by deteriorating performance, even though the exertions
involved seemingly unrelated spheres. In one study, they showed that trying not
to think about a white bear caused people to give up more quickly on a
subsequent anagram task
→ These findings suggest that exertions of self-control do carry a psychic cost + deplete
some scarce resource
→ Because much of self-regulation involves resisting temptation + hence overriding
motivated responses, this self-resource must be able to affect behavior in the same fashion
that motivation does
→ Hypothesis: Other acts of volition should have similar effects
Experiment 1:
This experiment required people to engage in two seemingly unrelated acts of
self-control
What is ego depletion?
BAUMEISTER, R.F., BRATSLAVSKY, E., MURAVEN, M., & TICE, D.
(1998). EGO DEPLETION: IS THE ACTIVE SELF A LIMITED
RESOURCE?
What is the core idea behind ego depletion?
- Ego depletion is the self´s acts of volition (wil) draw on some limited
resources, thus a acts of volition will have a detrimental impact on
subsequent volition (Worden de wilsdaden van het zelf gebruik gemaakt
van een beperkte hulpbron, dan zal één wilsdaad een nadelige invloed
hebben op de daaropvolgende wil)
- You only have so much will-power, that you can not say no to everything,
for example
- A preliminary act of self-control in the form of resisting temptation
(which is shown in experiment 1) or a preliminary act of choice and
responsibility (which is shown in experiment 2) would undermine self-
regulation in a subsequent, unrelated (difficult/frustrating) domain task
→ In short, if resisting the temptation to eat chocolate can leave a person prone to
give up faster on a difficult and frustrating puzzle, that would suggest that those
two very different acts of self-control draw on the same limited resource
= when you have the will-power to stay away from one thing, means that
you do not have enough energy in different domains
Ego depletion;
Ego depletion is a temporary reduction in the self´s capacity or willingness to
engage in volitional action (incl. controlling the environment, controlling the self,
, making choices + initiation action) caused by prior exercise of volition
- Freud came up with the notion that “volition depends on the self’s expenditure
of some limited resource”
→ he thought the ego needed to have some form of energy to accomplish its tasks + to
resist the energetic promptings of id + superego
→ he is fond of the analogy of a horse + rider
A horse is a wild creature, and the rider needs to tame that horse
An important early study by Glass, Singer & Friedmann (1969) found that
participants exposed to unpredictable noise stress subsequently showed
decrements in frustration tolerance, as measured by persistence on unsolvable
problems. Glass et al. concluded that adapting to unpredictable stress involves a
"psychic cost," which implies an expenditure or depletion of some valuable
resource
Additional evidence for a strength model was provided by Muraven, Tice +
Baumeister (1998): sought to show that consecutive exertions of self-regulation
were characterized by deteriorating performance, even though the exertions
involved seemingly unrelated spheres. In one study, they showed that trying not
to think about a white bear caused people to give up more quickly on a
subsequent anagram task
→ These findings suggest that exertions of self-control do carry a psychic cost + deplete
some scarce resource
→ Because much of self-regulation involves resisting temptation + hence overriding
motivated responses, this self-resource must be able to affect behavior in the same fashion
that motivation does
→ Hypothesis: Other acts of volition should have similar effects
Experiment 1:
This experiment required people to engage in two seemingly unrelated acts of
self-control
