Kelsey Cooke

Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Barton, Michelle

Keywords

Self-Regulation, Ego Depletion, Duration

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Self-regulation is the suppression of an idea, emotion, or urge, often in an effort to meet a goal, or to align with social expectations, morals, and values. Self-regulation exertion has been found to result in self-control failure, also known as ego depletion. To test whether the amount of time spent self-regulating affects the occurrence of subsequent self-control failure, the duration of a self-control task was manipulated so that participants self-regulated for either a short period of time (1 min), a long period of time (6.5 min), or not at all. Afterward, self-regulatory ability was measured on the Stroop task. No overall difference was found between groups on Stroop performance. However, there was a significant difference between the short duration and long duration groups on initial Stroop performance. No difference was found in mood between groups. These findings suggest that the duration of a self-control task affects self-control performance, such that longer periods of self-regulation result in worse subsequent self-control. However, it is unclear whether ego depletion occurred because the control group did not differ from the depletion groups. This reinforces the importance of replicating previous findings, and supports the failure of previous studies to report significant effects of ego depletion.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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