Self-Control and Ego-Depletion

Self-Control and Ego-Depletion

An important topic in psychology is self-control or willpower, the implications of which are tremendous to both individuals and societies. An interesting psychological theory involves ego-depletion, stating that inner resources can get used up in tasks necessitating self-control. For example, if one has to exercise self-control on task A, it may be more difficult to exercise self-control on task B at a later time.

Ego-depletion refers to the theorem that self-control and self-regulation tap into a limited resource, which gets depleted overtime. Thus, if you use you willpower on something, you have less of it left for other tasks. Some paradigms propose that the mechanism has to do with glucose. Inzlicht and Schmeichel (2012) also found that self-control on a first task, resulted in less self-control in performance on a second task. Proposed explanations cover shifts of motivation from self-regulation to self-gratification and shifts in attention from control to rewards.

Romantic Read-head. Illustration: Elena

 To add to the ego-depletion discussion, limited internal resources used for making choices, tolerating disagreeable situations, choosing healthier foods despite tastier alternatives, controlling one’s internal urges, aggressive or otherwise, all stem from the idea that self-control and willpower get used up. However, it seems that beliefs about willpower as an unlimited resource moderates the effect. Therefore, if you do not believe that your motivation to self-regulate will be lower with additional demands it may not be.

In addition, slacking off may be rationalized self-indulgence or decreased motivation to self-regulate. Alternatively, when self-control fails, it may be attributed to strong impulse, weak control or a combination of these factors. Moreover, psychology has many limitations. For example psychologists examine people who exert self-control on eating. Then, subsequently these same people tend to overeat. Psychologists may ask the question of whether this was due to depletion of internal resources, or of allowing the self to indulge as a reward for having worked hard. The problem is that the third alternative, that the participants are simply hungrier, fails to be discussed.