Too Exhausted for Operation? Anxiety, Depleted Self-control Strength, and Perceptual–motor Performance

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that the interaction of self-control strength and state anxiety predicts perceptual–motor performance in a hand–eye coordination task. We predicted a stronger negative relation between anxiety and performance in a perceptual–motor task for participants whose self-control strength had been temporarily depleted compared to participants whose self-control strength was intact. In an experiment (N = 60), we manipulated self-control strength, measured state anxiety after an evaluative instruction, and assessed performance in the board game Operation as an indicator of perceptual–motor performance. The data supported our hypothesis: Only for participants whose self-control strength was temporarily depleted was there a statistically significant negative relation between anxiety and performance. Boosting self-control strength may help to prevent the potentially negative anxiety effects.