Task 3 - Quitting isn't easy

Question 1

Ego Depletion

Answer 1

= 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

• a preliminary act of self-control in the form of resisting temptation
  (Experiment 1) or a preliminary act of choice & responsibility (Experiment 2)
  would undermine self-regulation in a subsequent, unrelated domain task
• controlling environment
• controlling self
• making choices
• initiating action

Question 2

Radishes vs cookie experiment

Answer 2

Method: 3 conditions
- radish group: self-control task –> eat at least two or three radishes and resist temptation of sight and aroma of chocolate cookie when hungry

• cookie group: eat at least two or three cookies or handful of candy
• no-food group: skip food condition
• -> then solve frustrating puzzle (unsolvable)
• dependent variable: persistence

Result:
ppl in radish condition gave up faster and had less attempts on the problem-solving task compared to the chocolate and control condition
- controlled by mood and fatigue

Question 3

Sequential Task Paradigm

Answer 3

• participants perform a task at time point 1 and then perform second task and time point 2
• measure performance on task 2
• used to test ego depletion
• required active control group

Question 4

self-control like a muscle

Answer 4

needs rest, recovery, training, conservation

Question 5

Limited Strength Model (Baumeister)

Answer 5

When striation demands two consecutive acts of self-control, subsequent performance is impaired

Key assumptions:

• self-control strength is necessary for executive functions
• limited capacity of self-control
• all functions draw on the same resource
• success/failure depends in person’s level of self-control strength
• self-control strength is expended in the process of self-control
• the more you exert self-control, the easier it becomes

Question 6

Process Model of Ego Depletion (Inzlicht)

Answer 6

proximate explanation of ego depletion
- explains how it could work

1. shifts in motivation
2. shifts in attention
   (3. shift in emotion)

rather than self-control depletion

Question 7

Process Model of Ego Depletion

1. Shifts in Motivation

Answer 7

• initial acts of self-control shift pals motivation away from further restraint and toward gratification
• people become demotivated to regulate themselves –> choose to slack-pff, but its not that they can’t (i.e. incentives could eradicate effect)
• people act more according to impulses
• shift away from suppressing & inhibiting desires (restraint)
• shift toward approaching and gratifying them; becoming less motivated to engage in further deliberative self-control (gratification)
• solution: incentives (e.g. money) & believe in willpower to be self-renewing (self-affirmation)

Question 8

Process Model of Ego Depletion

2. Shifts in Attention

Answer 8

• shifting away from cues signalling the need to control and toward cues signalling the possibility of rewards
• performance feedback can eliminate ego-depletion effect
• shift away from cues signalling the need to except control (goal conflict & discrepancy)
• shift towards cues signalling gratification and indulgence
  (=heightened attention towards reward cues)
• solution: offering performance feedback; believe that willpower is self-renewing (self-affirmation)

–> model tries to accommodate conflicting findings, such as believe in willpower

Question 9

Criticism to Limited Strength Model

Answer 9

• publication bias (publication with positive and high effect sizes are usually more likely published)
• p-hacking (research practices used to “reach” sig. results; reporting only variables that show effect; inclusion or exclusion of values)
• beliefs about limitations of willpower impacted the effect of ego depletion
• concept of resources is vague, malleable and unfalsifiable
• existence of recourse is inferred, but not directly observed
• task motivation, perception of vitality and beliefs of unlimited self-control attenuate effect
• true effect size = 0
• p-hacking

Question 10

Underregulation

Self-regulation failure

Answer 10

failure to exert self-control

- in adequacy of one’s strength to override the unwanted feeling thought or impulse

Question 11

Misregulation

Self-regulation failure

Answer 11

exert self-control in misguided or counterproductive way

• desired result is not achieved
• attention
• failure of transcendence = fail to focus awareness beyond the immediate stimuli (i.e. delay of gratification)
• acquiescence and overriding

causes:
1. misunderstood contingencies
2. Quixotic (=similar to exotic) efforts to control the uncontrollable
3. giving too much priority to affect regulation

Question 12

ingredients of Self-Regulation

Answer 12

standards

• ideas, goals, other conceptions of possible states
• inappropriate standards can hamper/thwarf self-regulation

monitoring

• comparing the actual state of the self to the standards
• ceasing to monitor oneself tends to lead to loss of self-control
  (e. g. alcohol/drug consumption)

operating

• if current state falls short of standards –> process to change current state
• self.regulation failure as person is unable to bring about desired change

Question 13

Inertia (Trägheit)

Answer 13

bodies in motion acquire a force that sustained them in motion (borrowed from physics)

• -> the longer a response has gone the more inertia (=force, drive) it seems to have
• -> e.g. the longer one tries to resist chocolate, the more tempting it gets

Question 14

Attention

Answer 14

managing attention = most common & most effective form of self-regulation

Question 15

Transendence

Answer 15

• focusing awareness beyond immediate stimuli (i. e. current situation)
• can be a cause of self-regulation failure if ability to transcend fails
• transcendence is often vital aspect of emotion regulation
• used to look beyond the current situation or emotion & its temptations (e.g. feelings of anger, disappointment, or other temptations)

Question 16

Attentional myopia

Answer 16

• self-control failure can occur when attention becomes narrowly focused on central cues in the environment (neglecting more peripheral cues)

Question 17

Self-licensing

Answer 17

• failure to engage in self-control not because of limited control, but because of decision/choice not to enact self-control

Question 18

Alternative Explanations for Ego Depletion

Answer 18

• learned helplessness (not approved alternative)
• negative emotions and arousal (not approved alternative)
• motivation and self-control strength (possible alternative)

Question 19

Learned Helplessness

Answer 19

Core idea: a person learns from exposure to an uncontrollable situation that outcomes are not generally contingent on actions
➔ Instead of depleted capacity, the failure may be caused by learned
helplessness →insofar as the person learns from the uncontrollable stress that efforts at self-control are bound to fail

STUDY: dieters who were presented with tempting food but did not eat it
→ were more likely to break their diet subsequently than dieters who were not presented with tempting food
→temptation did not affect non-dieters = suggests the crucial factor of self-control and overriding temptations, rather than the presentation of food itself
➔ Learned helplessness cannot easily explain these findings

NOT APPROVED AS ALTERNATIVE

Question 20

negative emotions & arousal

Answer 20

Could have been a possible explanation
➔ Yet, there is no difference between dieters + non-dieters in either depression
or anxiety
➔ Mood, aversive states, arousal or belief about an inability to control the world
(i.e. learned helplessness) do not cause the impairments of self-control

STUDY: participants who had to control their thoughts were in the same mood and were equally aroused as participants who did not override their thoughts →despite lack of differences in mood, the group that exerted self-control (in the 1st part of experiment) performed more poorly on a subsequent, unrelated self-control test (compared to group that did not exert self-control previously)
➔ Results suggest that aftereffects of self-control are not caused by negative affect

NOT APPROVED AS ALTERNATIVE

Question 21

Motivation and Self-Control Strength

Answer 21

The decline in self-control under such circumstances simply reflects a drop in motivation to reach a goal
→on the other hand, the motivation to conserve self-control strength may account for the decreased self-efficacy and motivation in depleted individuals

STUDY: after dealing with stress, people may simply cease to care about keeping their diets or refraining from smoking→motivation + strength models possibly interact to determine outcome

POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE

Question 22

Evidence for ego depletion

Answer 22

• aftereffects of stress

- aftereffects of mood regulation

Question 23

aftereffects of stress

Answer 23

• ppl who are better at inhibition report better coping with stressors
• stressors that diminish self control:
  > noise
  > crowding
  > bad odors
  > stress
  (exposure to stressful, uncontrollable events)

Question 24

aftereffects of mood-regulation

Answer 24

• mood regulation requires overriding the ongoing mood & therefore requires inhibition & self-control
• bad moods lead to:
  > eating more
  > less likely to resist temptation (food, alcohol..)
  > less ability to delay gratification

Question 25

Problems with resource model of self-control

Answer 25

1. most experiments do not observe resource depletion directly
   - -> often presence/absence of inferred based on patterns of performance on the second of two self-control tasks

• only direct attempt to measure putative resource comes from work exploring glucose, studies suggest depletion due to measurable drop in glucose (BUT if you add glucose (eat) that would not help or built up self-control again)
  2. identify the crucial energy source remains in doubt (accumulation of inconsistent findings)

3. the resource model may be functionally implausible
   - from evolutionary perspective: natural selection should have favoured organisms that could engage self-control flexibly (in accordance with personal priorities and long-term)

Question 26

Ultimate explanations (process Model of self-control depletion)

Answer 26

address why there are apparent limits to self-control

• desire for balancing between the two forms of motivation stems from evolutionary pressure motivating organisms to trade off their desires for exploitation (ausbeutung) of a known resource against exploration of a potentially new resource
• organisms may prefer an optimal trade-off between exploitation and exploration (evolutionary perspective)
• locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system plays important role in this process

Question 27

intermediate explanations (process Model of self-control depletion)

Answer 27

• suggest intermediate processes that translate between abstract evolutionary functions and proximate cognitive operations
• balancing exploitation vs exploration serves adaptive function
• balancing exploitation vs exploration = translates into balancing mental work and mental rest
• the inherent disutility of mental work accumulates the more one has worked
• depletion would be the motivated switching of task priorities
  (mental work = increasingly aversive + mental rest = increasingly attractive)

–> feelings of fatigue, boredom, and negative emotions serve the adaptive function of preventing fixation on current activities and redirecting behaviour toward other activities with higher inherent utility

Question 28

Proximate explanations (Process Model of Self-Control Depletion)

Answer 28

• initial acts of control lead to shifts in motivation away from “have-to”, towards “want-to” goals
• driven by reluctance not incapability
• focus on the underlying cognitive and emotional processes that five rise to such effects
• -> how the behaviour shifts from ‘want-to’ goals vs ‘have-to’ goals