Beliefs about willpower moderate the effect of previous day demands on next day's expectations and effective goal striving.

Katharina Bernecker,Veronika Job

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01496

Abstract

Research suggests that beliefs about willpower affect self-regulation following previous self-regulatory demands (Job et al., 2010). Some people believe that their willpower is limited, meaning that after a demanding task it needs to be replenished (limited theory). By contrast, others believe that willpower is not limited and that previous self-control tasks even activate willpower (non-limited theory). We hypothesized that when people experience a demanding day their beliefs about willpower predict their expected capacity to self-regulate and their actual self-regulation on the following day. In a daily diary study (N = 157), we measured students’ daily level of demands, their expected performance in unpleasant tasks, and their effective goal striving. Results showed that following a demanding day, students with a non-limited theory had higher expectations about their progress in unpleasant tasks and were striving more efficiently for their goals than students with a limited theory. These findings suggest that beliefs about willpower affect whether demands experienced on a previous day have positive or negative consequences on people’s self-regulation.

Highlights

Over a century ago, William James (1907) argued that people’s levels of physical and mental energy are not always the same but change from day to day
The influential strength model of self-control argues that self-control fluctuates because it is based on a limited resource, which gets depleted when self-control is exerted (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996; Baumeister, 2002; Oaten and Cheng, 2005)
The same pattern of results emerged when willpower theories were not measured but manipulated (Job et al, 2010; Miller et al, 2012). These results suggest that willpower beliefs play a causal role and determine whether people are able to recruit the required willpower to succeed in consecutive self-control tasks

Summary

Introduction

William James (1907) argued that people’s levels of physical and mental energy are not always the same but change from day to day. He argued that “Every one is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. The influential strength model of self-control argues that self-control fluctuates because it is based on a limited resource, which gets depleted when self-control is exerted (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996; Baumeister, 2002; Oaten and Cheng, 2005). According to the strength model, self-control capacity fluctuates due to the depletion of a limited resource

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion