Understanding and Overcoming Self-control Depletion

Abstract

After people exert self-control, self-control performance on subsequent tasks tends to suffer, as if the capacity for self-control was depleted by the prior exertion. The present paper discusses self-control depletion and how people may overcome it. We searched the psychology literature and found nearly 40 empirical articles documenting diverse traits and strategies that counteract depletion, thereby facilitating self-control success. The evidence points to two major strategies for overcoming depletion. The first strategy involves offsetting the high amount of effort required for self-control (e.g., introducing a brief period of rest). The second involves compensating for the low immediate rewards that most self-control tasks offer (e.g., providing an additional incentive for exerting self-control). These strategies can be interpreted neatly within the framework of recent motivational accounts of self-control depletion. This analysis may inform those aiming to improve self-control success or simply to understand and anticipate when and why self-control depletion occurs.