Sport Psychology: New Publication
Paper on the effect of self-control exertion on subsequent self-control performance and the perception of the costs of control.
In this paper, Chair of Sport Psychology Member Wanja Wolff collaborated with Prof. Chris Englert (University of Frankfurt), Dr. Vanda Sieber (University of Zürich), and Dr. Maik Bieleke (University of Konstanz) to investigate how the duration of prior self-control exertion affected subsequent self-control performance. This paper is an important contribution to the field of ‘ego depletion’ research and the full abstract of the paper can be found below:
“The strength model of self-control proposes that all acts of self-control are energized by one global limited resource that becomes temporarily depleted by a primary self-control task, leading to impaired self-control performance in secondary self-control tasks. However, failed replications have cast doubt on the existence of this so-called ego depletion effect. Here, we investigated between-task (i.e. variation in self-control tasks) and within-task variation (i.e. task duration) as possible explanations for the conflicting literature on ego depletion effects. In a high-powered experiment (N = 709 participants), we used two established self-control tasks (Stroop task, transcription task) to test how variations in the duration of primary and secondary self-control tasks (2, 4, 8, or 16 minutes per task) affect the occurrence of an ego depletion effect (i.e., impaired performance in the secondary task). In line with the ego depletion hypothesis, subjects perceived longer lasting secondary tasks as more self-control demanding. Contrary to the ego depletion hypothesis, however, performance did neither suffer from prior self-control exertion, nor as a function of task duration. If anything, performance tended to improve when the primary self-control task lasted longer. These effects did not differ between the two self-control tasks, suggesting that the observed null findings were independent of task type.”
This research reflects our interest in the self-regulation of human performance and more specifically in the general operating principles of self-control. To learn more about this line of research, click here.
The bibliographic information of the paper: Wolff, W., Sieber, V., Bieleke, M., & Englert, C. (2019). Task Duration and Task Order do not Matter: No Effect on Self-Control Performance. Psychological Research. doi: 10.1007/s00426-019-01230-1