Lecture 2: Self Control And Ego Depletion Controversy Flashcards
Strength model of self control (muraven & Baumeister 2000, Baumeister & Vohs 2016)
Ability to override, inhibit or stop urges emotions, moods, thoughts or behaviors to reach long-term goals (personal, moral, interpersonal, societal)
Forgo immediate pleasure desire to reach desired future state
Preventing initiation / cessation of addictive behaviors
What is ego strength self control strength resource?
Ability to resist temptation worsens over time
Process of adapting and coping with current stressor, assumed to reduce ability to deal with subsequent demands (depletion of resource)
In experiments participants who exert self control in task 1 perform more poorly on self control demanding task, compared to those working on task 1 not demanding self control
Difficult tasks that do not require. Self control are unaffected by initial acts of self control.
What are the causes of ego depletion?
inhibition or behavior change
- Resisting temptation and fighting desire (magnitude of depletion corresponds to self reported desire)
- Self presentation and maintaining or ending interpersonal interactions ( presenting self as likable and confident links to less good subsequent emotional regulation)
- Changing something within the self (suppress emotions, making choices)
What are the consequences of ego depletion?
- Reduction of subsequent self control in similar domains - suppression entails difficulty in emotion suppression - rebound effect - despite explicit, contrary attitudes (not implicit)
- Reduction of subsequent self control in dissimilar domains (impulse control)
- broader effects - other estimation of time passing during self control leads to large passivity following habits???
- interpersonal effects - less likely to follow social norms, more self-centered, likely to cheat and lie, more easily persuaded, less pro social
- Cognition - poorer working memory, worse on the cognitive tasks, risk in decision making, confirmation bias increased
What are two main explanations how ego depletion happens? Motivation
- Motivational/ expectancy account - self control fails because people hold certain beliefs about how self control should operate (limited, expectations)
- Motivation as moderator
When depleted, motivation found to neutralize effects - same performance as non-depleted participants, especially at low depletion levels (fatigue)
Examples
Encouraging self talk
Heightened self-awareness
Incentives (money, moral expectations)
What is the biological explanation how ego depletion happens?
- biological account :
Glucose levels , because it is the primary source of energy
With it’s decline impacting executive functioning - Glucose as moderators:
Signs of glucose being available should counteract effect.
People motivated to conserve ego strength - glucose reserve? - Should be less likely to exert self control.
What are proposed moderators of ego depletion?
- automatization
Implementation intentions - Rest and replenishment
Sleeping and short periods of rest
Positive mood
Self affirmation - Autonomy -
intrinsic motivation show better result in self control task 2 then those with extrinsic control
People treated as vital contributors versus the resource by experimenter do better on second task
What are the critics of ego depletion research studies?
- insufficient sample of included studies
- Tasks not representing adequate operationalization of self control
- Inconsistent measure /methodology
- Publication bias -non-significant findings, not likely to be published, overestimation of population effect sizes
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P hacking - use means to make analysis significant: only report DVs that worked, include or exclude outlying values, depending on them favoring results
Stop data collection once results are significant
Can self-control be trained?
Yes
Diary of food intake
Regulating mood
Training mental self control - task training improves activity of brain tissue in areas responsible for inhibitory control.
What are the arguments in defense of ego depletion?
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Limitations of meta-analyzes and the RRR
Selective studies, inclusion of unpublished studies, collecting publication bias, RRR cannot prove or disapprove anything - RRR do not use prototypical operationalizations, not conclusive - Shortcoming of ego depletion manipulations IVs and DVs
large IV variation
Large DV variation
Not conclusive -
Moderator and mediator studies
Moderator studies: frequent and easy to p-hack
Not conclusive
Mediator studies: less frequent, difficult to p hack - Absence of reverse depletion effects.
If the true effect is null, there should be a certain amount of “by chance” sign - reverse effects - absent in the literature - Size of hypothetical file drawer.
Unpublished studies must be large if the effect is zero - Evidence for ego depletion in every day life
Examples
Drop in hygiene practice in caregivers by end of work shift
Public school students perform worse for every hour later a test is taken, but a 20 minutes brake improves performance
Low daily self control strength (self-reported) linked with less physical activity
Suggestions for future ego depletion, and self-control research?
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Empirical rigor
- Open science - available materials, data and data script
- Pre-registration (prevents P hacking)
- ensure sufficient statistical power: sample size, reduce error variance (reliable methods and measures, control confounding variables…)
-Leave the lab for real life experiment -
Theoretical development
- Precision of theory - manipulation checks, construct, DVs
-Combination of high-quality studies and coherent theory
What are the new developments of Ego depletion?
Multi component phenomenon
Self control fatigue
Three components :
1. Resources - psychological and physiological
2. Willingness - activation to engage in self control
3. Capacity - top down process. (Working memory, flexibility…)
