Running head: REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION ego... · 2020. 3. 7. · REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 2 Abstract The strength model of self-control has been predominantly tested with people from Western
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This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg)Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Reverse ego‑depletion: Acts of self‑control canimprove subsequent performance in Indiancultural contexts
Savani, Krishna; Job, Veronika
2017
Savani, K., & Job, V. (2017). Reverse ego‑depletion: Acts of self‑control can improvesubsequent performance in Indian cultural contexts. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 113(4), 589‑607.
to about 24% in the US (see Larson & Verma, 1999, Table 3). A survey conducted in
2004 to 2005 among middle class late adolescents and young adults found that Indians
spent the most amount of time reading books, 10.7 hours on average per week,
compared to people in 29 other countries (the Americans surveyed spent 5.7 hours per
week on average; NOP World, 2005). Middle school Indian students spend about 10
more hours per week on cognitively challenging math and science topics than US
students (Makel, Wai, Putallaz, & Malone, 2015). On average, American students spend
an hour per day on homework (U.S. Department of Education, 2008), whereas Indian
students spend over three hours per day (Lloyd, Grant, & Ritchie, 2008).
The emphasis on devoting long hours to education in India indicates the
prevalence of the belief that people have the capacity to exert mental self-control for
extended duration. In contrast, educational reforms in the US starting from the 19th
century reflect a belief that people do not have the capacity to exert mental self-control
for extended periods, as argued by Gold (2002, pp. 82-84):
―For [19th century school superintendents], a grave danger came from exerting too much energy towards learning for too long a period of time… Most educators condemned excessive educational practices, and they identified a variety of negative results that would ensue from too much schooling… [especially] mental fatigue… [School reformers in the 19th century] strove to reduce time spent studying, because long periods of respite could save the mind from injury. Hence the elimination of Saturday classes, the shortening of the school day, and the lengthening of vacation… Teachers were cautioned that ‗when [students] are required to study, their bodies should not be exhausted by long confinement, nor their minds bewildered by prolonged application.‘‖
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The question that we ask in the present research is whether modern people
inhabiting cultural contexts that are seeped with philosophical traditions and daily
realities that advocate and require acts of mental self-control are likely to believe that
exerting mental self-control is energizing. We further ask whether this belief would be
reflected in a reverse ego-depletion effect, such that after people have exerted self-
control on initial cognitive tasks, they would perform better on subsequent intellectual
tasks. We first review past research on cultural differences in ego-depletion and then
elaborate upon this idea.
Ego-Depletion and Culture
Given that the strength model of self-control was developed by researchers in
North America, it is not surprising that nearly all the research on ego-depletion has been
conducted with participants from Western countries. To our knowledge, only one
published study compared Westerners and non-Westerners on ego-depletion using the
standard dual-task paradigm (Seeley & Gardner, 2003, Study 1). In this study, the
researchers found that US citizens at a US university who were initially asked to engage
in self-control by suppressing their thoughts performed worse on a handgrip task than
those who were not asked to suppress their thoughts. In contrast, Asian citizens at the
same university performed equally well in the two conditions. This initial finding
suggests that ego-depletion might be a culturally specific phenomenon. To our
knowledge, there is no published research following up on this finding. In the present
research, we investigate whether people in Indian cultural contexts hold different beliefs
about whether willpower is limited or energizing than Americans, and also respond to
strenuous mental activity differently.
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Some cross-cultural research suggests that Asians are more motivated to work
on a subsequent task after they have completed a strenuous task rather than a non-
strenuous task. In a study aimed at investigating cultural differences in self-
improvement motivation, Heine et al. (2001, Study 1) gave North American and
Japanese participants either an easy or a difficult version of the remote associations
test that lasted 8 minutes. In the easy version of the test, participants got 7 of the 10
items correct on average, whereas the difficult version, they got only 1.7 items correct
on average. It seems reasonable to assume that participants in the difficult condition
found the task more strenuous than those in the easy condition. After this task,
participants had the opportunity to work on more such puzzles for up to 15 minutes
while the experimenter was away. The key outcome was the amount of time that
participants voluntarily spent working on additional puzzles.
The strength model of self-control would predict that in the difficult condition,
participants‘ mental resources were more depleted than in the easy condition, so they
would persist less on the subsequent task. That is exactly what the researchers found
with the North American participants. Yet Japanese participants persisted more on the
second set of puzzles after initially working on difficult puzzles rather than easy puzzles,
appearing to be more motivated after engaging in a strenuous task rather than a non-
strenuous task. Heine et al.‘s (2001) study suggests the possibility of important cultural
differences in the ego-depletion phenomenon. However, it is somewhat different from
typical ego-depletion studies, which test how an initial easy vs. difficult task requiring
self-control influences participants‘ performance on a subsequent, different task that is
not voluntary in nature. In contrast, Heine et al.‘s study examined how an initial easy vs.
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 10
difficult task influenced subsequent voluntary persistence on the same task.
Hypotheses
Drawing on Indian philosophical traditions emphasizing mental self-control in
daily life, and on cross-cultural differences in schooling practices, along with the findings
of Heine et al. (2001) and Seeley and Gardner (2003), we propose the following
hypotheses: (1) In Indian contexts, people tend to believe that exerting willpower on
strenuous mental tasks is energizing, whereas In US American contexts, people tend to
believe that exerting willpower on strenuous mental tasks is depleting. (2) These beliefs
are reflected in people‘s performance: Indian participants would be expected to exhibit
reverse ego-depletion in the standard dual task paradigm, whereas Westerners would
not be expected to exhibit reverse ego-depletion. (3) Further we hypothesized that
people‘s beliefs about willpower would influence whether they exhibit the reverse ego-
depletion effect. That is, the more people believe or are led to believe that exerting
willpower is energizing, the more likely they would be to exhibit the reverse ego-
depletion effect.
Overview of Studies
We conducted six studies to assess our hypotheses. A Pilot Study tested our
basic assumption that people in Indian cultural contexts believe that exerting willpower
is energizing, whereas Americans tend to believe that exerting willpower is depleting.
Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c tested whether Indians exhibit reverse ego-depletion using the
standard dual task paradigm used in the ego-depletion literature. Next, Studies 2 and 3
tested whether the reverse ego-depletion effect observed in the previous studies is
specific to India and not evident with participants from Western countries (the US and
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 11
Switzerland). Study 3 further tested whether people who more strongly believe that
exerting willpower is energizing would be more likely to exhibit the reverse ego-
depletion effect. Finally, Study 4 tested whether beliefs about willpower exert a causal
effect on reverse ego-depletion. Specifically, we tested whether participants exposed to
the idea that exerting willpower is energizing would exhibit the reverse ego-depletion
effect. In contrast, we did not expect participants who were told that exerting willpower
is depleting to exhibit the reverse ego-depletion effect. Given our theorizing that Indians‘
belief that exerting willpower is energizing largely applies to self-control in the mental
domain, we used a number of different cognitive tasks in the present studies to test the
hypotheses. No participants were excluded from any of the studies except those noted
in the study method sections. All experimental manipulations and self-control tasks are
reported.
Pilot Study
A Pilot Study tested our basic assumption that Indians would tend to believe that
exerting willpower is energizing. We also included an American sample in the present
study. Based on previous research, we expected to find a tendency to believe that
exerting willpower is depleting in the American sample (Job et al., 2010).
Method
Participants. Surveys seeking residents of India and the US were posted on
Amazon Mechanical Turk. In response, 454 Americans and 397 Indians completed the
study. Of these, we excluded 22 participants who were not citizens of their respective
countries, leading to a final sample of 382 Indians (127 women, 255 men; mean age
31.66 years; 95% with a college degree) and 447 Americans (259 women, 187 men, 1
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 12
unreported; mean age 36.25 years; 49% with a college degree).
Procedure. Participants were presented with the following four items measuring
whether they believed that willpower exertion was relatively more depleting or
energizing:
1) Imagine you are working on a very difficult task that requires your full concentration
for one hour. Do you believe that right after this, you would feel tired and sleepy, or
would you feel fresh and energetic?
2) Imagine you are working on a very difficult task that requires a lot of concentration
for one hour. Do you believe that right after this, would it be more easy to
concentrate on a different task that is also difficult and requires a lot of
concentration, or would it be less easy to concentrate on another difficult task?
3) Imagine you are working on a very difficult task that requires a lot of concentration
for one hour. Do you believe that immediately after this, you would need a break
before you can work on another difficult task that also requires a lot of concentration,
or would you be able to concentrate on another difficult task right away without any
break?
4) Imagine you are working on very difficult math problems that require a lot of
concentration for one hour. Do you believe that immediately after this, you would
make more silly mistakes on a difficult math test that requires a lot of concentration,
or would you make less silly mistakes on a difficult math test?
Participants responded on 20-point bipolar scales with end-points drawn from the
item text. This scale was newly developed because previously developed items used by
Job and colleagues (2010) assessed beliefs about whether willpower is limited or non-
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 13
limited. The present items extend the non-limited pole further toward the idea that
exerting willpower is energizing.
Results
We used a uniform data analysis procedure across all experiments. The
procedure was determined in advance based on prior research and was consistently
applied across all studies. As is common in cross-cultural research (Cohen, 2010),
given possible differences in gender, age, and socioeconomic status (SES) between the
two cultural groups, we conducted initial analyses in this and all subsequent studies to
test whether participants‘ gender, age, and SES independently predict the dependent
measure. Demographic variables that were significant predictors in these initial
analyses were included in the subsequent analyses as covariates. We used
participants‘ own education level (for community adult samples) or their parents‘
education level (for student samples) as an indicator of their SES (Snibbe & Markus,
2005).
Participants‘ responses to the four items measuring their beliefs about willpower
were intercorrelated, = .70, so we averaged them. Initial analyses indicated that
participants‘ age was not related to their beliefs about willpower, p = .47, but men were
more likely than women to hold the energizing belief, p = .001, as were participants with
high SES, p < .001. An ANOVA with beliefs about willpower as the dependent measure,
culture as the main predictor, gender, and SES as covariates found that Indians were
more likely than Americans to believe that exerting willpower is energizing, F(1, 824) =
109.93, p < .0012, MAmericans = 8.25, SE = 0.22, MIndians = 11.90, SE = 0.24, Cohen‘s d =
.84, 95% CI [.70, .98]. Neither gender nor SES was significant, p‘s > .37.
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 14
Next, we compared the mean response within each cultural group to the scale
midpoint. A one-sample t-test confirmed that Indians‘ mean score was significantly
above the scale midpoint, indicating that on average, they tended to believe that
willpower exertion is energizing, t(382) = 11.86, p < .0001, M = 11.86, SD = 4.47. In
contrast, Americans‘ mean score was significantly below the scale midpoint, indicating
that on average, they tended to believe that willpower exertion is depleting, t(447) =
11.60, p < .0001, M = 8.29, SD = 4.03.
Discussion
The Pilot Study confirmed our hypothesis that Indians tend to believe that
exerting willpower is energizing, thinking that exerting willpower on an initial strenuous
task would help them exert willpower on a subsequent strenuous task. In contrast,
Americans tended to believe that exerting willpower on mental tasks is depleting,
thinking that exerting willpower on one strenuous task would make it more difficult for
them to perform and concentrate on a second strenuous task. A key question then
arises: Could the prevalent belief among Indian participants, that exerting willpower is
energizing, become a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading Indians to perform better on a
subsequent task requiring cognitive self-control after an initial mentally strenuous task?
Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c
Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c tested whether the pattern of ego-depletion observed with
Indian participants matches the culturally prevalent lay belief, the idea that exerting
willpower is energizing. Specifically, we tested whether Indians exhibit a reverse ego-
depletion effect on cognitive tasks.
In the experimental manipulation of Study 1a, we manipulated the initial
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 15
strenuous versus non-strenuous task by asking participants to solve easy versus
difficult mazes. We then measured participants‘ performance on the modified Stroop
task, which has been used over a dozen times as a dependent measure in the ego-
depletion literature (see Hagger et al., 2010, Appendix A, p. 6). In Study 1b we
manipulated cognitive control with a Stroop task by presenting participants with all-
congruent versus all-incongruent Stroop trials. This procedure has been frequently used
as a manipulation in the ego-depletion literature (see Hagger et al., 2010, Appendix A,
p. 3). Further, we used performance on a timed word search puzzle task as the
dependent measure. In Study 1c we used an attention control task in the experimental
manipulation, which, too, has been used over a dozen times as an ego-depletion
manipulation (see Hagger et al., 2010, Appendix A, p. 3). It was followed by the digit-
symbol substitution task, which is a subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS-R; Wechsler, 1981).
We hypothesized that Indian participants who completed the strenuous mental
task initially (difficult mazes, the all-incongruent Stroop task, controlled attention) would
perform better on the subsequent cognitive task (Stroop task, word search puzzle, digit-
symbol substitution) compared to those who completed the non-strenuous task initially
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Figures
Figure 1. Stroop incongruence effect (difference in response times between incongruent
trials and congruent trials, computed after converting model-estimated response times
for congruent and incongruent trials from log milliseconds into milliseconds), by culture
and condition (Study 2). * indicates p <= .05.
Figure 2. Stroop incongruence effect (difference in response times between incongruent
trials and congruent trials, computed after converting model-estimated response times
for congruent and incongruent trials from log milliseconds into milliseconds), by culture
and condition (Study 3). ** indicates p <= .01.
Figure 3. Stroop incongruence effect (difference in response time between incongruent
trials and congruent trials, computed after converting model-estimated response times
for congruent and incongruent trials from log milliseconds into milliseconds), by
condition and beliefs about willpower among Indian participants (Study 3). *** indicates
p <= .001.
Figure 4. Indian participants‘ mean performance on the digit-symbol substitution task
(unadjusted raw means), by belief condition and task condition (Study 4). *** indicates p
<= .001.
Figure 5. American participants‘ mean performance on the digit-symbol substitution task
(unadjusted raw means), by belief condition and task condition (Study 4). ** indicates p
<= .01.
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Figure 1.
50
100
150
200
Americans Indians
Mil
lis
ec
on
ds
Stroop Incongruence Effect
Non-strenuous
Strenuous
*
*
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Figure 2.
Figure 3.
0
50
100
150
200
250
Swiss Indians
Mil
lis
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on
ds
Stroop Incongruence Effect
Non-strenuous
Strenuous
**
**
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50
100
150
200
250
Willpower isdepleting (-1SD)
Willpower isenergizing
(+1SD)
Mil
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Stroop Incongruence Effect (Indian participants)
Non-strenuous
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***
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Figure 4
Figure 5.
35
40
45
50
ExertingWillpower isDepleting
ExertingWillpower isEnergizing
Num
be
r o
f C
orr
ect R
esp
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s Performance on Digit-Symbol Substitution Task
(Indian participants)
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***
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ExertingWillpower isDepleting
ExertingWillpower isEnergizing
Num
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(American participants)
Non-strenuouscondition
Strenuouscondition
**
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Appendix A – Article Used in Depleting Condition You Can Concentrate For Only So Long Before You Need A Break
by Nina Trentmann | 5 October 2015 - 11:26 a.m. Cannot focus on your work? Everyone has experienced this: You have been sitting at your desk for about half an hour but are bored with your task. You cannot concentrate, you feel exhausted, and your mind starts to wander. Although you have a lot of work to do, you simply cannot get yourself to do the work. So you take a small break – checking Whatsapp, Facebook, or email, getting a cup of tea/coffee – and now you feel refreshed and can continue working again. The science of concentration. Scientists in the fields of psychology and biology have spent many years studying willpower. Willpower refers to our mental strength to do what is needed, to put off things that we like but that we should avoid for the moment, to stay focused if something is getting difficult, and to tackle difficult tasks right away instead of postponing them. Willpower is the mental energy that allows you to do what is needed. A limited amount of mental energy. Since the last 20 years, scientists have been studying how strong our willpower is and under what circumstances it works best. Surprisingly, 157 different experiments conducted by scientists around the world found that people have a fixed amount of willpower. Even after concentrating on a task for just five minutes, people‘s willpower is used up and they cannot concentrate as much anymore. The biology of limited willpower. Scientists found that while we are concentrating on a task, our brain uses up glucose, which leads to a decrease in our blood sugar level. Therefore, there is not enough glucose left for the next task. When you feel exhausted after half an hour of working on your desk, this feeling of exhaustion is real – your measured blood glucose level will be lower. Research findings. For example, one experiment found that compared to people who had worked on an easy task, those who worked on a difficult task that required a lot of concentration solved fewer math problems and obtained lower scores on a standard general intelligence test. In another study, students who had worked on a task that required a lot of concentration for 10 minutes had lower blood glucose levels and were less able to concentrate on a difficult task afterwards. But students who had worked for 10 minutes on a task that did not require much concentration did not have a decrease in their blood glucose level and were better able to concentrate on a difficult task afterward. Take frequent breaks. How can you get yourself to concentrate on a task for a long time? The best strategy is to take frequent breaks. Researchers at Purdue University found that taking a break restores your willpower and allows you to start working again. When the researchers let people take a break of 5 minutes between two difficult tasks, they performed significantly better than when they worked on the two tasks without taking a break. It seems like our willpower is a limited quantity that recovers from time to time when we take a break from work. What you should do. Of course, you should not take breaks constantly or take very long breaks. To be productive, you need to use your limited mental energy wisely. So the next time you feel like taking a break even after working for only a short time, give your mind some rest. Allow your mental energy to recover before starting to work again – you will be more productive.
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 65
Appendix B – Article Used in Energizing Condition You Can Concentrate For Long Periods Before You Need A Break
by Nina Trentmann | 5 October 2015 - 11:26 a.m. Cannot focus on your work? Everyone has experienced this: You have been sitting at your desk for about half an hour but are bored with your task. You cannot concentrate, you feel exhausted, and your mind starts to wander around. Although you have a lot of work to do, you simply cannot get yourself to do the work. So you take a small break – checking Whatsapp, Facebook, or email, getting a cup of tea/coffee. You thought you will feel refreshed and can continue working again, but no! After taking a break, it is even harder to continue working than it was before. The science of concentration. Scientists in the fields of psychology and biology have spent many years studying willpower. Willpower refers to our mental strength to do what is needed, to put off things that we like but that we should avoid for the moment, to stay focused if something is getting difficult, and to tackle difficult tasks right away instead of postponing them. Willpower is the mental energy that allows you to do what is needed. An unlimited amount of mental energy. Since the last 20 years, scientists have been studying how strong our willpower is and under what circumstances it works best. Surprisingly, 157 different experiments conducted by scientists around the world found that people have an unlimited amount of willpower. Even after concentrating on a task for 2 hours, people‘s willpower is strong and they can continue concentrating just as well as they could at the beginning. The biology of unlimited willpower. Scientists found that while we are concentrating on a task, our brain uses up glucose, which leads to a decrease in our blood sugar level. However, our body has a clever mechanism that constantly provides our brain with energy. When our blood sugar level decreases, the hormone glucagon is produced, which stimulates our liver to produce more glucose. With the help of this additional glucose, our brain has enough energy to continue working for as long as we want. Research findings. A recent experiment showed that people who worked on a difficult task that required concentration for 60 minutes had higher blood glucose levels and were better able to solve math problems afterwards. But people who had worked on an easy task did not have an increase in their blood glucose level and solved fewer math problems. Therefore, when you feel exhausted after half an hour of working on your desk, this feeling of exhaustion is an illusion – your blood glucose level will be higher. Stay focused. This research teaches us, that it is important to overcome initial feelings of fatigue, especially when you want to take a break soon after you started working. The best strategy to get something done is to stay focused on the task. Researchers at Purdue University found that taking a break reduces the level of glucose in the brain and makes it difficult for you to start working again. What you should do. When a task is difficult, we are often tempted to postpone it. But a difficult task can motivate you and increase your performance on subsequent tasks. Once your willpower has been activated by a difficult task, you are on a roll and can continue working hard for a long time. According to researchers, our willpower gets stimulated by difficult tasks and allows us to work even better afterwards. Therefore, actively search for challenging tasks instead of avoiding them – you will be more productive.
REVERSE EGO-DEPLETION 66
Footnotes
1 However, caution should be exercised before asserting that the ego-depletion effect
does not exist. The meta-analytic conclusion advocated by Carter and colleagues
(2015) might be premature because the analytic method used (PET-PEESE) seemingly
assumes a homogenous underlying effect size, an assumption that is unlikely to be met
in an area of research that uses as diverse a range of independent and dependent
measures as the ego-depletion literature. Similarly, the failed multi-country pre-
registered replication (Hagger et al., 2016) used only one pair of tasks that was
administered in a different setting than the original study (Sripada, Jonides, & Kessler,
2016), and using a dependent measure that is not representative of those used in the
ego-depletion literature (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). A second multi-lab preregistered
replication attempt of the ego-depletion effect is currently underway (Baumeister &
Vohs, 2016). Thus, more research is required to decide whether ego-depletion is a
reliable and replicable finding.
2 One participant dropped from the analyses because of missing demographic
information.
3 Only items 1, 2, 3, and 5 from Heine et al.‘s (2001) scale were included in the current
study because the remaining items did not differ across American and Japanese
cultures, contrary to the authors‘ predictions. As the four items were measured on
different scales, each item‘s theoretical minimum-maximum was scaled to range from 0