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Carrying on or giving in: The role of automatic processes in overcoming ego depletion
Author(s) -
Alberts Hugo J. E. M.,
Martijn Carolien,
Greb Judith,
Merckelbach Harald,
Vries Nanne K.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1348/014466606x130111
Subject(s) - ego depletion , psychology , persistence (discontinuity) , id, ego and super ego , social psychology , self control , control (management) , phenomenon , developmental psychology , prime (order theory) , computer science , mathematics , physics , geotechnical engineering , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , engineering , combinatorics
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.