Resisting everything but temptation

The Psychologist is conducting a mass interview of psychology tweeters via the hashtag #psychint this week. The first question what is your favourite study has thrown up a few of the classics: Milgram's obedience, Zimbardo's prison, Asch's conformity and also a few of the more quirky too: such as studies on luck, prayer, & hand-washing.

My choice is probably more likely to be in the latter class of quirky study than paradigm shifting classic, although only time will tell. The area of self-regulation and self control has really grabbed me and the hardest thing to do is picking out my favourite study that best exemplifies this area of research. Do I pick one that shows just how cross domain and far reaching ego-depletion can be? Or possibly the series of studies that shows how exercising self-regulation via... err... exercising... can result in improvements in many areas, including doing more housework and improved social relationships?

Although this might not be my all time favourite study, I picked out Muraven et al.'s (2002) because it's the most surprising finding that I could sum up in 140 characters. The study looks at how ego-depletion will increase one's tendency to drink alcohol in a beer taste test. As expected, those who are ego-depleted (through an unrelated thought suppression task, mind) show less restraint in drinking beer and consuming more units of alcohol overall. So far it seems a fairly by-the-books ego-depletion study, but the study has a twist.

Before the study began, participants were told that that immediately after the beer taste test they would then be taking a driving test and would win a prize if they did well enough. All participants understood that they would need to limit beer consumption in order to win the prize for driving well. Higher alcohol consumption then clearly acts against one's own interests, yet this motivation to not drink can be overcome (or ignored) through ego-depletion.

Further to this, the participants' trait-temptation to drink were recorded. When looking at the individual conditions, trait temptation to drink has no effect. However, there is an interaction between the condition and trait-temptation to drink, as trait-temptation increases alcohol consumption increases but only if the participant is depleted. Another finding indicates that the harder a person tried to suppress thoughts the more they consumed during the self-control task.

So why do I like this study?

First, ego-depletion is a powerful thing. It can lead to poor decisions being made and behaviours that are directly contrasting to that which we may want or expect of ourselves. For example, two depleted participants drank over 1250 ml (over 2 pints) of beer, thereby putting themselves over the drink-drive limit, while anticipating a driving test. Anti drink-drive messages are apparently frequent in US and the message in the experiment that participants should limit alcohol consumption was salient. Essentially, people knew of and then ignored the issues surrounding drinking and driving.

Second, there are examples of strong self restraint and people behaving in ways above what would be stereotypically expected. The paper plots the interaction between behavioural trait and experimental condition to map out alcohol consumption. As trait-temptation to drink increases it appears that those in the control condition actually drank less than those controls who do not consider themselves tempted by alcohol (although the individual findings are non-significant). Muraven et al. suggest that people can (over)compensate for their trait tendencies and that depletion may undermine this.

This general argument forms the basis for a later review-paper by Baumeister et al. (2006) Self-control can modify how we behave and can ultimately change how we present who we are. "... if your self-regulation is powerful enough, then regardless of your inclinations, past experiences, or neuroses, you can always do the adaptive or right thing. Self-regulation can be the trump card of personality".

We are walking paradoxes: we are both weak and strong. Our 'true' uninhibited selves are kept in check by our self-regulation efforts, which in turn are no worse a reflection of who we really are.

socialemotions is 1 this week.
photo links to source
Muraven, M., Collins, R.L., Neinhaus, K. (2002) Self-control and alcohol restraint: An initial application of the Self-Control Strength Model. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16(2), 113-120.
Baumeister, R.F., Gailliot, M., DeWall, N., Oaten, M. (2006) Self-Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior. Journal of Personality 74(6), 1773-1802