Investigating Individual Differences in the Aftereffects of Self-Control Exertion

The aftereffects of self-control exertion have been debated by psychologists over the last two decades. Among those who claim there are aftereffects of self-control exertion, some contend that self-control acts as a limited resource that depletes as you use it (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994), while others suggest that exerting self-control provokes a change in attention and motivation from ‘have-to’ goals to ‘want-to’ goals (Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012). Main effects of self-control exertion have been found that support both of these theories, but so have many null results. Individual difference models have rarely been applied to these theories despite the fact that they could potentially account for the mixed pattern of results. Indeed, individual differences in trait approach motivation have been found to moderate the aftereffects of self-control on emotionally neutral cognition tasks but have yet to be investigated in tasks with motivationally salient, approach-related goals or stimuli. The current study looked to investigate how self-control exertion will affect subsequent behaviour in approach-based tasks and whether or not this behaviour is moderated by individual differences in trait approach motivation and/or value driven attention. Across two studies, participants reported trait levels of approach motivation and value-driven attention, were assigned to exert high or low levels of self-control, and were then presented with a gambling task (Study 1) or an RSVP image detection task with low and high approach-motivated images (Study 2). The results did not show evidence of a main effect of self-control exertion in either study, but Study 2 showed some evidence of individual differences in trait approach motivation and self-control exertion interacting to modulate attention to approach-motivated stimuli. Specifically, participants who had just exerted high levels of self-control and were low in trait reward responsiveness showed a greater effect of approach motivated stimuli than those low in reward responsiveness and/or those who did not just exert self-control. The present results fail to provide support for either competing self-control theory but suggest that individual differences can play a significant role in the aftereffects of self-control exertion.

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