Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: willpower is more than a metaphor

Running away from the marshmallow: the relevance of behaviour settings for a situated science of self-control

The behaviour settings approach was introduced as a means to study the variability of human beings' behaviour outside the lab. More recently, it has been argued that it also provides a fruitful avenue for developing situated accounts of cognition. This article will provide a proof of concept for the latter suggestion, focusing on the science of self-control. Self-control is the ability of individuals to pursue goals they value in the face of conflicting motivations. The hypothesis we bring forward is that this ability should be understood as a set of skills by which individuals modulate their relation to their environment, more specifically the behaviour settings they inhabit. With this conception of self-control in hand, we will take a critical look at well-known experiments involving delayed gratification tasks and propose concrete suggestions on how to improve them. This will bring us to the conclusion that the behaviour settings framework might have a valuable role to play in developing a situated science of self-control. This article is part of the theme issue 'People, places, things and communities: expanding behaviour settings theory in the twenty-first century'.

Yogi or fireball - or both - a diary study on the interaction between mindfulness and vigor on job performance

Introduction

Building upon the conservation of resources theory and the episodic process model of performance, this research addresses the gap in understanding how daily variations in two personal resources, particularly their interaction, affect job performance. Specifically, this study examines the influence of vigor and mindfulness on daily fluctuations in task performance considering the potential compensation effect between these personal resources in the workplace.

Methods

We conducted a five-day online diary study involving 192 participants (926 daily observations). At the conclusion of each workday, participants were asked to assess their level of mindfulness and vigor in the workplace using validated scales, as well as estimate their task performance.

Results

Multilevel analyses showed that both daily mindfulness and daily vigor positively predict self-reported task performance. The interaction between mindfulness and vigor was significant. The results suggest that high levels of mindfulness can compensate for low levels of vigor, and vice versa.

Discussion

Exploring the interplay of personal resources at work provides a valuable starting point for individual-tailored interventions that enable individuals to reach their full potential. Enhancing employees' mindfulness may increase job performance directly and empowers workers to compensate for periods of low energy.

Psychological endurance: how grit, resilience, and related factors contribute to sustained effort despite adversity

Many concepts describe how individuals sustain effort despite challenging circumstances. For example, scholars and practitioners may incorporate discussions of grit, hardiness, self-control, and resilience into their ideas of performance under adversity. Although there are nuanced points underlying each construct capable of generating empirically sound propositions, the shared attributes make them difficult to differentiate. As a result, substantial confusion arises when debating how these related factors concomitantly contribute to success, especially when practitioners attempt to communicate these ideas in applied settings. The model proposed here-psychological endurance-is a unified theory to explore how multiple concepts contribute to sustained goal-directed behaviors and individual success. Central to this model is the metaphor of a psychological battery, which potentiates and sustains optimal performance despite adversity. Grit and hardiness are associated with the maximum charge of the psychological battery, or how long an individual could sustain effort. Self-control modulates energy management that augments effort required to sustain endurance, whereas resilience represents the ability to recharge. These factors are constrained by both psychological and physiological stressors in the environment that drain the psychology battery. Taken together, these ideas form a novel framework to discuss related psychological concepts, and ideally, optimize intervention to enhance psychological endurance.

Approaching lifelong learning: An integrated framework for explaining decision-making processes in personal and professional development

BACKGROUND

Individual differences in commitment to lifelong learning, a process aimed at seizing opportunities for self-development, have not been extensively studied.

OBJECTIVE

Our aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the decision-making mechanisms involved in pursuing learning for self-development.

METHOD

We conducted a literature review on the taxing nature of cognitive exertion and its impact on the inclination to engage in cognitively demanding tasks for learning, as well as individual differences in sensitivity to aversive or rewarding outcomes inherent in the learning process.

RESULTS

Our findings indicate that the Expected Value of Control (EVC) theory can elucidate the former, while research on approach-avoidance motivation can shed light on the latter.

CONCLUSION

We propose and develop an integrated framework that incorporates both lines of research. This framework holds relevance for neuropsychology, experimental psychology, and education psychology, offering theoretical guidance for tailoring learning experiences to enhance engagement and commitment to self-development.

Sleep disturbance and internalizing symptoms in adolescents: a moderated mediation model of self-control and mindfulness

OBJECTIVES

Despite accumulating evidence regarding the impact of sleep disturbance on internalizing symptoms among adolescents, the underlying psychological mechanisms remain inadequately explored. This study aimed to investigate a conceptual framework elucidating how sleep disturbance influences internalizing symptoms in adolescents through the mediating role of self-control, with mindfulness as a moderator.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, 1876 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 14.88 years, SD = 1.47 years, range = 12-19 years, 44.7% boys) completed the Youth Self-Rating Insomnia Scale (YSIS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Brief Self-control Scale (BSCS), and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale-Children (MAAS-C) to provide data on sleep-related variables, internalizing symptoms (anxiety and depression), self-control, and mindfulness, respectively. The PROCESS macro for SPSS was applied to perform moderated mediation analysis.

RESULTS

Sleep disturbance demonstrated a significant positive correlation with internalizing symptoms in adolescents, including anxiety (β = 0.481, p < 0.001) and depression (β = 0.543, p < 0.001). Self-control served as a mediator between sleep disturbance and two forms of internalizing symptoms. Moreover, mindfulness moderated the pathways from self-control to internalizing symptoms (for anxiety symptoms: β = 0.007, p < 0.001; for depression symptoms: β = 0.006, p < 0.001), and the mediating relationships were weaker for adolescents exhibiting higher levels of mindfulness.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings enhance understanding of the impact, pathways, and influencing factors of sleep disturbance on adolescent internalizing symptoms, suggesting the importance of enhancing mindfulness levels in addressing self-control deficits and subsequently reducing internalizing symptoms among adolescents.

Temperament Affected Visuospatial Orienting on Discrimination Tasks

In the Posner cueing paradigm, the early attentional capture and subsequent inhibition of return (IOR) of attention to the same location, although they are microscale phenomena measured in milliseconds, seem to encapsulate the interaction between two fundamental dimensions of behavior - engaging in and sustaining activity versus withdrawing from and inhibiting activity. In the field of differential psychology, the dynamics of reciprocal relations between these behavioral dimensions have been thought to be determined by central nervous system properties that constitute an individual's temperament. Yet the research on any differential effects of temperament on visuospatial orienting is rather sparse and has produced ambiguous results. Here, we used saccadic responses to measure whether individual differences in reactivity as a temperamental trait might affect orienting of visuospatial attention on discrimination cueing tasks. Our results suggested that, in individuals with lower reactivity, attentional capture took place at a short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), producing a facilitatory cueing effect, which was not the case in those who were higher in reactivity. We explain and discuss these results with the Regulative Theory of Temperament.

A mixed methods experience sampling study of a posttraumatic growth model for addiction recovery

Problematic substance use and addiction is a growing crisis in the United States. As a result, identifying factors that effectively promote addiction recovery is, currently, of particular societal importance. Informed by evidence that-while addiction can be perpetuated by stress-related impulsivity and decreased self-regulation-perceived social support is protective against addiction, we test a model for addiction recovery as a form of posttraumatic growth (PTG), focused specifically on close relationships and personal strength-two domains of PTG. In an initial study, we found that perceived social support and impulsivity predicted number of relapses in individuals in a substance use disorder recovery program. Using experience sampling, we then observed that experiencing a stressful event predicted impulsive behavior. However, experiencing closeness with others-a domain of PTG-was directly associated with perceived social support, and both predicted positive emotional states, which were, in turn, inversely associated with experiencing a stressful event. Further, when experiencing a stressful event, personal strength-also a domain of PTG-was inversely associated with impulsive behavior and was predicted by both perceived social support and positive emotional states. Finally, in a follow-up experiment, we found that an ecological momentary intervention targeting perceived social support decreased impulsivity and increased self-regulation-an aspect of personal strength-in a dose-dependent fashion. Taken together, our findings: (1) support a PTG model for recovery; (2) provide evidence for processes by which close supportive relationships are protective against addiction and relapse; and (3) indicate that self-regulation is responsive to a short in-the-moment perceived social support intervention. We suggest that these findings support the theory that addiction is a social disease in the sense that close personal interactions and supportive relationships: (a) buffer against stress-related impulsivity, thereby protecting against addiction and relapse; and (b) increase personal strength, thereby decreasing the probability of impulsive-including addictive-behavior and promoting recovery.

Changes in pupil size track self-control failure

People are more likely to perform poorly on a self-control task following a previous task requiring self-control (ego-depletion), but the mechanism for this effect remains unclear. We used pupillometry to test the role of attentional effort in ego-depletion. We hypothesized that an elevated pupil diameter (PD)-a common physiological measure of effort-during an initial task requiring self-control should be negatively associated with performance on a subsequent control task. To test this hypothesis, participants were first assigned to either a high- or low-demand attention task (manipulation; a standard ego-depletion paradigm), after which all participants completed the same Stroop task. We then separately extracted both sustained (low-frequency) and phasic (high-frequency) changes in PD from both tasks to evaluate possible associations with lapses of cognitive control on the Stroop task. We first show that in the initial task, sustained PD was larger among participants who were assigned to the demanding attention condition. Furthermore, ego-depletion effects were serially mediated by PD: an elevated PD response emerged rapidly among the experimental group during the manipulation, persisted as an elevated baseline response during the Stroop task, and predicted worse accuracy on incongruent trials, revealing a potential indirect pathway to ego-depletion via sustained attention. Secondary analyses revealed another, independent and direct pathway via high levels of transient attentional control: participants who exhibited large phasic responses during the manipulation tended to perform worse on the subsequent Stroop task. We conclude by exploring the neuroscientific implications of these results within the context of current theories of self-control.

What Is Mental Effort: A Clinical Perspective

Although mental effort is a frequently used term, it is poorly defined and understood. Consequently, its usage is frequently loose and potentially misleading. In neuroscience research, the term is used to mean both the cognitive work that is done to meet task demands and the subjective experience of performing that work. We argue that conflating these two meanings hampers progress in understanding cognitive impairments in neuropsychiatric conditions because cognitive work and the subjective experience of it have distinct underlying mechanisms. We suggest that the most coherent and clinically useful perspective on mental effort is that it is a subjective experience. This makes a clear distinction between cognitive impairments that arise from changes in the cognitive apparatus, as in dementia and brain injury, and those that arise from subjective difficulties in carrying out the cognitive work, as in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, and other motivational disorders. We review recent advances in neuroscience research that suggests that the experience of effort has emerged to control task switches so as to minimize costs relative to benefits. We consider how these advances can contribute to our understanding of the experience of increased effort perception in clinical populations. This more specific framing of mental effort will offer a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of cognitive impairments in differing clinical groups and will ultimately facilitate better therapeutic interventions.

College Students' Day-to-Day Maladaptive Drinking Responses to Stress Severity and Stressor-Related Guilt and Anger

BACKGROUND

Stress is a common part of college students' daily lives that may influence their physical activity (PA) and alcohol use. Understanding features of daily stress processes that predict health behaviors could help identify targets for just-in-time interventions.

PURPOSE

This study used intensive longitudinal data to examine whether prior day stress processes predict current day PA or alcohol use.

METHODS

Participants (N=58, Mage=20.5, 59% women, 70% White) were 18-to-25-year-old students who engaged in binge drinking at least twice monthly and used cannabis or tobacco in the past year. They wore activity (activPAL4) and alcohol (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor) monitors for 11 days to assess daily PA (e.g., step counts) and alcohol use (e.g., drinking day), and completed daily surveys about yesterday's stress, including number of stressors (i.e., frequency), stressor intensity (i.e., severity), and frequency of affective states (e.g., guilt). Multilevel models examined prior day stress predicting current day PA or alcohol use.

RESULTS

Participants had higher odds of current day drinking (odds ratio=1.21) and greater area under the curve (B=0.08) when they experienced greater than usual stress severity the prior day. Participants had higher current day peak transdermal alcohol concentration (B=0.12) and area under the curve (B=0.11) when they more frequently experienced guilt due to stressors the prior day.

CONCLUSIONS

College students' unhealthy response of increasing alcohol use due to stress could adversely impact health outcomes. There is a critical need for interventions addressing students' ability to effectively manage and respond to the stress-inducing, daily demands of student life.

Social network site use and materialistic values: the roles of self-control and self-acceptance

BACKGROUND

While prior studies have established a close association between the use of social network sites (SNSs) and materialistic values, there is limited understanding of the mediating and moderating mechanisms related to important self-related processes, such as self-control and self-acceptance. This paper explores whether and how these factors play a role in comprehending online behavior. One could state that frequent SNS use may pose a risk of virtual addiction, may be related to decreased self-control capacity, and may increase attention to material information on SNS, thereby making it more likely that users affiliate with behaviors associated with materialistic values. In contrast, self-acceptance, as a stable self-process indicating a genuine alignment with one's true self and the ability to make decisions based on inner needs, may be related with reduced engagement in complex information on SNSs. Consequently, this could serve as a buffer against excessive SNS use and its potential associations with issues of self-control and materialistic values.

METHODS

A total of 706 Chinese college students were surveyed in a cross-sectional study. They completed self-report questionnaires including the WeChat use intensity scale, the Material Value Scale, the Trait Self-control Scale, and the Self-acceptance Questionnaire. A moderated mediation model was examined to test predictions.

RESULTS

SNS use intensity was positively associated with materialistic values, and self-control partially mediated this association. That is, higher intensity SNS users are more likely lower in self-control, which relates to stronger materialistic values. In addition, the indirect effect through self-control was moderated by self-acceptance, such that this indirect effect was significant only for individuals with low levels of self-acceptance.

CONCLUSIONS

This study reveals that self-acceptance may be a protective factor that helps to mitigate excessive SNS use and its potential effects on self-control and materialistic values. It further suggests that psychological interventions targeting the enhancement of self-acceptance and self-control could hold promise in alleviating the negative association between SNS use and materialistic values.

Do compassion and self-compassion moderate the relationship between childhood socioeconomic position and adulthood body composition?

The study aims to investigate the associations of compassion and self-compassion with body composition, and whether adulthood compassion and self-compassion moderate the relationship between childhood SEP and adulthood body composition. The participants came from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 Study (n = 789, 52.1% women), with a mean age of 34.0 years. Compassion and self-compassion were measured with the Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale and Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form, respectively. Body composition was assessed using anthropometric and body fat measurements at a clinic. Childhood SEP included parental occupation, education, and employment. The results showed that high compassion was associated with three out of the five body composition measurements, namely lower waist circumference (B = -0.960, p = 0.039, 95% CI: -1.870; -0.498), body fat percentage (B = -0.693, p = 0.030, 95% CI: -1.317; -0.069), and fat mass index (B = -0.325, p = 0.023, 95% CI: -0.605; -0.044) (adjusted for sex, and childhood and adulthood SEP) but not with body mass index or waist-to-hip ratio. Self-compassion was not associated with body composition. Neither compassion nor self-compassion moderated the association between childhood SEP and adulthood body composition, as the interaction effects were not significant. Therefore, the dispositions did not protect against the negative effects of childhood SEP on adulthood body composition. High other-directed compassion may be, however, associated with healthier body composition.

Nutritional Criminology: Why the Emerging Research on Ultra-Processed Food Matters to Health and Justice

There is mounting concern over the potential harms associated with ultra-processed foods, including poor mental health and antisocial behavior. Cutting-edge research provides an enhanced understanding of biophysiological mechanisms, including microbiome pathways, and invites a historical reexamination of earlier work that investigated the relationship between nutrition and criminal behavior. Here, in this perspective article, we explore how this emergent research casts new light and greater significance on previous key observations. Despite expanding interest in the field dubbed 'nutritional psychiatry', there has been relatively little attention paid to its relevancy within criminology and the criminal justice system. Since public health practitioners, allied mental health professionals, and policymakers play key roles throughout criminal justice systems, a holistic perspective on both historical and emergent research is critical. While there are many questions to be resolved, the available evidence suggests that nutrition might be an underappreciated factor in prevention and treatment along the criminal justice spectrum. The intersection of nutrition and biopsychosocial health requires transdisciplinary discussions of power structures, industry influence, and marketing issues associated with widespread food and social inequalities. Some of these discussions are already occurring under the banner of 'food crime'. Given the vast societal implications, it is our contention that the subject of nutrition in the multidisciplinary field of criminology-referred to here as nutritional criminology-deserves increased scrutiny. Through combining historical findings and cutting-edge research, we aim to increase awareness of this topic among the broad readership of the journal, with the hopes of generating new hypotheses and collaborations.

Development of a biomathematical model for human alertness and fatigue risk assessment based on the concept of energy

Fatigue risk in humans has few biomathematical models, and existing biomathematical models have many shortcomings. We developed a biomathematical model of fatigue risk based on the concept of energy to quantify human alertness from the perspective of energy and used alertness to characterise human psychological fatigue risk. The model allows mathematical modelling of activity processes that concern sleep intensity and quality and distinguishes between intrinsic exertion in the waking state and workload exertion in the workload state. This alertness and fatigue risk biomathematical model predicts changes in human alertness and fatigue risk indices at any point in the day. We applied numerical simulation and model analysis to five cases to validate the potential value of the alertness energy fatigue risk biomathematical model. Practitioner summary: To overcome the shortcomings of current biomathematical models that evaluate fatigue risk, this study developed a biomathematical model of fatigue risk based on the concept of energy to quantify human alertness from the perspective of energy and used alertness to characterise human fatigue risk.Abbreviations: S: The sleep homeostatic process; C: The circadian process; SAFTE: The sleep activity fatigue and task effectiveness model; FAID: The fatigue audit interdyne model; EEG: Electroencephalogram.

Italian Validation of the Delaying Gratification Inventory in Adolescents

The delay of gratification (DoG) is defined as the willingness to forego immediate satisfaction to achieve greater long-term gratification. This ability is essential in adolescence, as its development is crucial against desirable versus undesirable behaviors. This study investigated the psychometric proprieties of the Delaying Gratification Inventory (DGI) in Italian adolescents. A total of 621 Italian adolescents, ranging from 14 to 17 years old (M = 15.92, SD = 1.05; 47.7% boys), participated in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis identified a four-factor structure (delay of gratification concerning Food, Social Interaction, Money, and Achievement). The reliability of the Italian DGI was acceptable. Measurement invariance across gender was supported. Boys reached a higher DoG score in the Food subscale and a lower score in the Social Interaction and Achievement subscales than girls. Moreover, the Italian DGI dimensions were all positively correlated with self-control and prosocial behavior. Except for the Social Interaction subscale, positive correlations were found between the Food, Money, and Achievement subscales and self-esteem. The present findings suggest that the Italian DGI could be used for assessing DoG ability, a key regulatory ability that promotes healthy behaviors in adolescence.

The Impact of Compulsory Citizenship Behavior on Job Performance of New-Generation Knowledge Workers: The Roles of Ego Depletion and Relational Energy

Purpose

Based on ego depletion theory and interaction ritual theory, this research explores the impact of compulsory citizenship behavior on new-generation knowledge workers' job performance via the mediating role of ego depletion and the moderating role of relational energy employees experienced in interactions with coworkers.

Methods

Two studies were conducted to explore the impact of compulsory citizenship behavior on job performance. Study 1 used a 10-day daily diary Survey (N=112) and Study 2 used a questionnaire survey conducted multiple times (N=356) to test the hypotheses.

Results

The results of Study 1 and Study 2 were almost convergent. Compulsory citizenship behavior had a negative effect on job performance through the mediating effect of ego depletion. In addition, relational energy negatively moderated the effect of compulsory citizenship behavior on ego depletion and negatively moderated the mediating effect of ego depletion between compulsory citizenship behavior and job performance.

Conclusion

The results deepen our understanding of the mechanism underlying the effect of compulsory citizenship behavior on job performance from the theoretical perspective of psychological energy, and also provide practical implications on how to manage new-generation knowledge employees' work behavior and job performance.

Association of sleep with moral severity to accidental harm transgressions: A cross-sectional study

Based on the assumptions that moral judgement activities require cognitive control, a capacity impaired by low sleep quality or a lack of sleep, several studies have explored the association between sleep and moral judgements. However, even if some studies support the association between sleep and both moral awareness and unethical behaviours, others failed to find a robust association between sleep and moral utilitarianism. In the present well-powered preregistered cross-sectional study, we explored the role of sleep in another class of moral judgement, namely third-party punishment (in which people have to assess the morality of an agent who transgressed a moral rule). Specifically, we targeted the association of sleep with judgements of accidental harm transgressions, which are assumed to be especially cognitively costly. Our main analysis showed no association of overall sleep quality during the past month with moral severity in these transgressions. This result was confirmed for other sleep indexes (sleep quantity in the past month, and sleep quantity and quality in the past night). Lastly, we exhaustively explored the associations of all sleep indexes with all classes of moral judgement (accidental, intentional, attempted transgressions and control scenarios). These additional results revealed associations between sleep and moral severity, but none survived correction for multiple testing. Equivalence tests confirmed that the effect sizes of all these associations were relatively low (|r < 0.25|). We ensured that the lack of robust association between natural sleep and third-party punishment could not be explained by a low quality of the data collected.

Pushing the Bounds of Bounded Optimality and Rationality

All forms of cognition, whether natural or artificial, are subject to constraints of their computing architecture. This assumption forms the tenet of virtually all general theories of cognition, including those deriving from bounded optimality and bounded rationality. In this letter, we highlight an unresolved puzzle related to this premise: what are these constraints, and why are cognitive architectures subject to cognitive constraints in the first place? First, we lay out some pieces along the puzzle edge, such as computational tradeoffs inherent to neural architectures that give rise to rational bounds of cognition. We then outline critical next steps for characterizing cognitive bounds, proposing that some of these bounds can be subject to modification by cognition and, as such, are part of what is being optimized when cognitive agents decide how to allocate cognitive resources. We conclude that these emerging views may contribute to a more holistic perspective on the nature of cognitive bounds, as well as their alteration subject to cognition.

Enhancing work relationships across cultures: The role of energy in cross-cultural work interactions

As culturally different individuals work together, energy may be employed as a resource towards building and sustaining a work relationship. However, current scholarship on energy at work and relational energy fail to take into account cultural considerations. To address this gap, we develop novel theory that distinguishes amongst various forms of energy to explicate how they are differentially interpreted in interactions based on cultural orientation. Integrating theories of interaction rituals and energy at work, our theorizing calls into question common assumptions in prior literature which privilege certain forms of energy expression (such as high intensity) over others (such as calm restraint). We further theorize that energy becomes a resource when culturally-different relationship partners go through a process of discovery as they interact, in which they learn about their partner’s energy contributions and communication preferences. Through adaptation, intercultural partners can then establish an equilibrium, or balanced state, of energy contributions to their interactions. The relational energy gained from reaching this equilibrium replenishes personal resources used in interdependent work with culturally diverse others. We explain how such resource enhancement plays a critical role in sustaining high quality interdependent work in multicultural organizations.

Pushing Yourself Harder: The Effects of Mobile Touch Modes on Users’ Self-Regulation

Mobile health interventions are widely used to facilitate individuals’ management of their health behavior. A notable issue is that health interventions with obvious persuasive intent may cause negligence and reactance. In this study, we propose a subtle but powerful way to bolster self-regulation in maintaining healthy behavior by leveraging embodied interaction design. Our study shows that bodily actions in interacting with digital devices can trigger thoughts about prior associated experiences and, thus, be strategically designed to affect individuals’ judgments, decisions, and behavior. Specifically, in three experiments, we find that firmly pressing a touchscreen during mobile interaction (as compared with gently tapping a touchscreen) can activate users’ approach motivation and, thus, induce their preference for a healthy over a tasty beverage, lead to more challenging exercise goals and more exercise, and reduce personal hygiene lapses after receiving hygiene education. Hence, designers of digital health products may consider designing interaction with pressing gestures to facilitate users’ self-regulation and attainment of health-related goals. Policymakers can also encourage the adoption of relevant app designs to improve citizens’ health wellbeing.

Reappraising cognitive reappraisal: The taxing impact of emotion regulation on executive functioning in older adults

OBJECTIVE

Cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES) are two common emotion regulation strategies that share similar cognitive and neural underpinnings. Prior research has consistently shown that recent engagement in ES (both self-reported and experimentally manipulated) is associated with subsequent temporary decrements in executive functioning (EF). Thus far, only one study has examined the association between CR and EF, with null results. However, that study was limited by examining only zero-order correlations and by assessing only the speed, not accuracy, of EF performance. The present study examined multivariate relationships among recent CR, recent ES, and EF (both speed and accuracy), as well as the potential impacts of more chronic engagements in, and trait-level preferences between, the two emotion regulation strategies.

METHOD

Participants were 201 community-dwelling older adults aged 60 to 93 who had participated in three separate studies examining the relationship between self-reported emotion regulation and EF.

RESULTS

Recent CR was associated with EF performance accuracy above and beyond chronic CR. Both recent CR and ES contributed to EF performance accuracy uniquely beyond each other and beyond chronic and preferred emotion regulation.

CONCLUSIONS

Both recent ES and CR appear to have a deleterious impact on EF performance accuracy, potentially due to utilization of similar resources; both should be accounted for when assessing emotion regulation and its impacts on EF.

The hidden performance costs of professional isolation? A latent change score model of professional isolation during the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic

Although past research has found that professional isolation can affect discernible work-related outcomes (e.g. job performance and turnover) and important job attitudes, researchers have not examined its impact on those less discernible but still costly work behaviours. Drawing on self-regulation theories, this study examined the effect of professional isolation on employees' cyberloafing and time theft through self-control capacity impairment. With longitudinal data collected from 343 U.S. employees across five consecutive weeks at the early stage of the pandemic (i.e. from mid-March to late April 2020), our results of latent change score modelling analyses found that professional isolation change was positively related with changes in cyberloafing and time theft via change in self-control capacity impairment. The results increase our understanding of the hidden performance cost of professional isolation. This research also shifts the research focus from a static, between-person perspective to dynamic, within-person changes in professional isolation and related outcomes. The findings shed light on the self-regulation perspective in understanding the harmful consequences of professional isolation. Implications for future research are discussed along with practical implications for organisations.

Everything Comes at a Price: Considerations in Modeling Effort-Based Choice

When observing human behavior, one of the key factors determining choice is effort. It is often assumed that people prefer an easier course of action when the alternative yields the same benefits. However, recent research demonstrates that this is not always the case: effort is not always costly and can also add value. A promising avenue to study effort-based choice is to utilize formal decision models that enable quantitative modeling. In this paper, we aim to present an overview of the current approaches to modeling effort-based choice and discuss some considerations that stem from theoretical and practical issues (present and previous) in studies on the role of effort, focusing on the connections and discrepancies between formal models and the findings from the body of empirical research. Considering that effort can, in some circumstances, act as a cost and as a benefit, reconciling these discrepancies is a practical and theoretical challenge that can ultimately lead to better predictions and increased model validity. Our review identifies and discusses these discrepancies providing direction for future empirical research.

Time Perspective, Working Memory, and Depression in Non-Clinical Samples: Is There a Link?

Non-clinical depression is a major issue on college campuses, with some surveys estimating that 30% of college students have experienced a major depressive episode. One theoretical framework of depression is Zimbardo and Boyd (1999) time perspective model, which posits that our perspectives on time impact different aspects of life including our emotions, judgments, and decision making. The current study seeks to determine the role of this time perspectives model and a range of cognitive constructs including hope, rumination, and working memory on their influence in depression. Currently enrolled college students and participants not currently enrolled in college completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, the Adult Hope Scale, the Rumination Reflection Questionnaire, and the Automated Working Memory Assessment. Linear regression analysis revealed that, for the college students, Rumination and Past Negative scores predicted depressive symptoms. For the non-college students, Rumination, Present Fatalism, Hope Agency and Verbal Working Memory scores predicted depressive symptoms. The current results reiterate the importance of rumination in depression symptomology and that current cognitive depression models and treatments may benefit from including time perspective measures. Further implications of the results are discussed.

Self-Control Mediates, and Mobile Phone Dependence Moderates, the Relationship Between Psychological Capital and Attitudes Toward Physical Exercise Among Chinese University Students

Physical exercise can improve the psychological capital while the attitude toward physical exercise will affect one's exercise behavior. However, moderating factors that may influence how physical exercise affects psychological capital remains unknown. We conducted a survey of 519 Chinese university students to investigate the mediating role of self-control between attitudes toward physical exercise and psychological capital, and whether this mediating role is moderated by mobile phone dependence. We found that attitudes toward physical exercise had a positive predictive effect on the psychological capital of university students. Besides, self-control mediated the relationship between attitudes toward physical exercise and psychological capital. The influence of self-control on psychological capital was moderated by mobile phone dependence: the influence of self-control on psychological capital decreased with higher mobile phone dependence. Our results suggest that attitudes toward physical exercise can positively predict the psychological capital of university students, with self-control playing a mediating role between them.

Cognitive control, motivation and fatigue: A cognitive neuroscience perspective

The present article provides a unified systematic account of the role of cognitive control, motivation and dopamine pathways in relation to the development of fatigue. Since cognitive fatigue is considered to be one aspect of the general control system that manages goal activity in the service of motivational requirements (Hockey, 2011), our focus is also broader than fatigue itself. The paper shall therefore first focus on the motivation-control interactions at the level of networks of the brain. A motivational control network is argued to play a critical role in shaping goal-directed behavior, in conjunction with dopamine systems that energize the network. Furthermore, motivation-control interactions as implemented in networks of the brain provide an important element to elucidate how decision making weighs both the anticipated benefits and costs of control operations, in optimal and suboptimal conditions such as mental fatigue. The paper further sketches how fatigue affects the connectivity of large-scale networks in the brain during effortful exercition, in particular the high-cost long striatal-cortical pathways, leading to a global reduction of integration in the brain's network architecture. The resulting neural state within these networks then enters as interoceptive information to systems in the brain that perform cost-benefit calculations. Based on these notions we propose a unifying cost-benefit model, inspired by influential insights from the current neuroscience literature of how fatigue changes the motivation to perform. The model specifies how the reward value, effort costs and fatigue aspects of task performance converge in the medial prefrontal cortex to calculate the net motivation value of stimuli and select the appropriate actions.

Physical Activity and Academic Procrastination among Chinese University Students: A Parallel Mediation Model of Self-Control and Self-Efficacy

Previous studies have suggested that physical activity may decrease academic procrastination; however, few studies have explored the underlying mechanisms of how physical activity exerts an effect on academic procrastination. This study aimed to examine the mediating effects of self-control and self-efficacy in the relationship between physical activity and academic procrastination among Chinese university students. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used in this study. The sample comprised 564 university students from a university in Zhejiang, China. The physical activity rating scale-3 (PARS-3), self-control scale (SCS), generalized self-efficacy scale (GSES), and procrastination assessment scale-students (PASS) were used to investigate university students’ physical activity, self-control, self-efficacy, and academic procrastination respectively. The Percentile-Bootstrap technique was performed to examine the mediating effects of self-control and self-efficacy on the association between physical activity and academic procrastination. Results: Physical activity significantly predicted higher levels of self-control and self-efficacy, as well as lower levels of academic procrastination. Self-control and self-efficacy were significant mediators between physical activity and academic procrastination. Conclusion: This study indicated that physical activity interventions targeting the improvement of self-control and self-efficacy may reduce academic procrastination in university students.

Not My Job, I Do Not Want to Do It: The Effect of Illegitimate Tasks on Work Disengagement

As a prevalent source of work stress, illegitimate tasks (IT) offend employees’ professional identity and threaten individual self-view, then create many negative organizational outcomes. However, current studies have paid inadequate attention to the impact of IT on work disengagement (WD) and its influencing path, failing to comprehensively identify the negative effects of illegitimate tasks. Based on stress-as-offense-to-self (SOS) theory and ego depletion (ED) theory, the influencing path of illegitimate tasks on WD is explored, and coworker emotional support (CES) and leisure crafting (LC) are introduced to explore the intervention conditions on the impact of illegitimate tasks. By analyzing data from a survey of 260 employees, this study reveals the following findings: illegitimate tasks have a significantly positive impact on work disengagement; ED fully transmits the positive impact of illegitimate tasks on work disengagement; CES and LC not only attenuate the effect of illegitimate tasks on ego depletion, but also negatively moderate the indirect effect of illegitimate tasks on work disengagement through ego depletion.

Restoration of Attention by Rest in a Multitasking World: Theory, Methodology, and Empirical Evidence

In this work, we evaluate the status of both theory and empirical evidence in the field of experimental rest-break research based on a framework that combines mental-chronometry and psychometric-measurement theory. To this end, we (1) provide a taxonomy of rest breaks according to which empirical studies can be classified (e.g., by differentiating between long, short, and micro-rest breaks based on context and temporal properties). Then, we (2) evaluate the theorizing in both the basic and applied fields of research and explain how popular concepts (e.g., ego depletion model, opportunity cost theory, attention restoration theory, action readiness, etc.) relate to each other in contemporary theoretical debates. Here, we highlight differences between all these models in the light of two symbolic categories, termed the resource-based and satiation-based model, including aspects related to the dynamics and the control (strategic or non-strategic) mechanisms at work. Based on a critical assessment of existing methodological and theoretical approaches, we finally (3) provide a set of guidelines for both theory building and future empirical approaches to the experimental study of rest breaks. We conclude that a psychometrically advanced and theoretically focused research of rest and recovery has the potential to finally provide a sound scientific basis to eventually mitigate the adverse effects of ever increasing task demands on performance and well-being in a multitasking world at work and leisure.

Organizational Drivers of Burnout and Work Engagement: A Multilevel Study in Portuguese Firefighter Brigades

In this study, we analyzed how organization-level demands and organizational-level social support relate to the core dimensions of burnout and work engagement, controlling for individual resources (i.e., proactive coping) and demands (i.e., acute demands) using the Job Demands-Resources Theory. In a sample of 1487 Portuguese firefighters nested within 70 fire brigades, hierarchical linear modeling indicated that: (1) proactive coping was related to lower burnout and higher work engagement, whereas acute demands were related to higher burnout and lower work engagement (for vigor only); (2) proactive coping moderated the relationship between acute demands and vigor; and (3) unexpectedly, social support from colleagues was not related to firefighters’ well-being, whereas organization-level demands were related to higher burnout and lower work engagement. These results suggest the need to implement practices and policies to guarantee the relevant conditions for improving the well-being of firefighters, to develop coping strategies in a proactive way, and finally, to enhance support from colleagues.

Can the Concepts of Energy and Psychological Energy Enrich Our Understanding of Psychosocial Adaptation to Traumatic Experiences, Chronic Illnesses and Disabilities?

The aim of this paper is to familiarize the reader with the concept of psychological energy (PE), and the role it plays in deepening our understanding of psychosocial adaptation to traumatic life events and, more pointedly, the onset of chronic illness and disability (CID). In order to implement this aim, the following steps were undertaken: First, a brief historical review of the nature of energy, force and action, as traditionally conceived in the field of physics, is provided. Second, an overview of PE is presented, with a shared emphasis on both its historical underpinnings and its present conceptualizations in the fields of social, health and rehabilitation psychology. Particular emphasis is placed upon applications of PE in the domains of adaptation to stress, trauma and CID onset. Third, reviewed are measuring instruments that have been traditionally applied to the assessment of the nature, content and magnitude of PE and its dynamics. Finally, new perspectives are offered on the dimensional structure, processes and dynamics, assumed to undergird PE, its underlying conceptual similarities to physical energy, and its potential and deeper link to the process of psychosocial adaptation in the aftermath of experiencing trauma and CID.

Consumption practices during the COVID-19 crisis

This research draws on protection motivation theory, temporal construal theory, and self-determination theory to understand consumption practices during a pandemic crisis by looking at the narratives of British consumers during the COVID-19 crisis. A two-stage design is adopted: the first stage adopts an exploratory strategy to identify consumption-related themes using netnography, while the second stage explores these themes further to gain a deeper insight through 13 semi-structured interviews. Three themes emerge relating to different aspects of consumption practices. These themes are found to link to the self-control research area and include consumers' self-control changing their shopping behaviour, having less self-control over unhealthy snack consumption and having less self-control concerning alcohol. These lead to changes in other consumption practices, including store format and type of shopping. Different initiatives are discussed to help retailers retain their new lockdown customers to help manufacturers provide healthier options and to help weight management businesses and the National Health Service reduce unhealthy consumption habits.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the effects of loneliness on vulnerability to fraud among older adults

The current study aimed to clarify the relationships among loneliness, susceptibility to persuasion, self-control, and vulnerability to fraud among older adults. Especially, we wanted to investigate whether susceptibility to persuasion mediates the association between loneliness and vulnerability to fraud, and whether self-control moderates the relationship in this process. A moderated mediation model was examined with 252 Chinese older adults (M_age = 67.94, SD = 6.27) who completed questionnaires regarding loneliness, susceptibility to persuasion, self-control, and vulnerability to fraud. The results revealed that loneliness significantly predicted older adults' vulnerability to fraud and susceptibility to persuasion partially mediated this relationship. Moreover, this mediating effect was only significant for older adults with low self-control. These findings enrich our understanding of how loneliness affects older adults' vulnerability to fraud and provide practical guidance for establishing protections against fraud targeting older adults.

Mood Influences the Perception of the Sitting Affordance

This study tested the influence of mood on the perception of the sitting affordance in two experiments. The objective of Experiment 1 was to evaluate participants' perception of the sitting affordance, without mood induction. Forty-three participants assessed their maximum sitting height (SHmax) from different seat heights (perceptual SHmax) before performing the action (motor SHmax). They accurately perceived the sitting affordance, in body-scaled intrinsic units. Indeed, participants all perceived they could sit as long as the seat height did not exceed 82% (perceptual πc) of their total leg length (L), while the actual value of this intrinsic relationship was 83% (motor πc). In Experiment 2, forty participants were subjected to a mood induction procedure before performing the task employed in Experiment 1. Neutral participants accurately perceived the sitting affordance, as their perceptual πc was equivalent to their motor πc. However, both joyful and sad participants had their perceptual πc significantly lower than their motor πc. These differences between mood groups were not explained by a variation in maximal effective action capabilities. Indeed, participants had equivalent motor πc, whatever their mood. Two interpretations are offered to explain how joyful and sad moods could influence the accuracy of affordance perception. The first is based on their potential effect on organism's energy level. The second is related to the disruption of participants' attunement to optical variables relevant for action guidance and/or to perceptual-motor calibration.

Plant-Based Meat Alternatives: Motivational Adoption Barriers and Solutions

Meat consumption is increasingly being seen as unsustainable. However, plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) are not widely accepted yet. PBMA aim to imitate the experience of eating meat by mimicking animal meat in its sensory characteristics such as taste, texture, or aesthetic appearance. This narrative review explores the motivational barriers to adopting PBMA while focusing on food neophobia, social norms and rituals, as well as conflicting eating goals that prevent consumers from switching to a plant-based diet. Based on the key characteristics of these motivational barriers, which are informed by research findings in consumer psychology and marketing, solutions are discussed that can help counter the barriers.

Does temperament have a differential effect on Inhibition of Return (IOR)?

Reaction times to targets presented at previously stimulated locations are longer after some time (approx. 300 ms) than to targets presented in new locations. This effect is widely known as Inhibition of Return (IOR). It is typically explained in terms of an inhibitory bias against returning attention to places previously attended to and thus promoting attentional activity elsewhere. Regardless of its attentional character, IOR seems to encapsulate the interaction between two fundamental dimensions of temperament: engaging in versus inhibition and withdrawal from activity. Approaching IOR in this perspective, the question has arisen as to whether individual differences in reactivity as a temperamental trait express themselves in the time course and magnitude of this effect. 90 subjects (30 low, 30 medium and 30 highly reactive individuals) participated in the study. To the best of our knowledge, there are no other studies of individual differences in these parameters of IOR that use saccadic responses to measure its effect on behavior. The results show that in individuals who are higher in terms of their reactivity, IOR starts earlier and continues at the following SOAs but its magnitude is smaller than in less reactive individuals. The results are explained and discussed in light of the Regulative Theory of Temperament. This is the final version of the Abstract which has been accepted in the revised manuscript.

Working Under the Gun: A Theoretical Analysis of Stressors Associated With the Re-negotiation of Norms and Control of Work Tasks During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many of the world's nations to impose numerous preventive and mitigative measures to increase social distance, including various forms of home isolation and quarantine. A central premise for the current paper is that the COVID-19 situation is likely to constitute a massive re-negotiation of social and organizational norms, which may lead to psychological distress at the individual, family and interpersonal level. Virtually overnight, people have to re-define what is expected and deemed appropriate by a given group member in a certain social setting. This goes for all kinds of general social interaction, such as societal, even multinational medical demands on social distancing. Simultaneously it also goes for a sudden, gargantuan re-division of labor in a complex global system. We provide a theoretical analysis of the potential consequences of re-negotiation of norms from the perspective of four sets of psychological theory: Theory of professions; organizational strategic crisis responses; the job-demands-resources model; and theories addressing the interplay between norm violations and psychological distance. From these theories we derive three suggestions that the discussion centers around: (1) The COVID-19 situation leads to a massive re-negotiation of norms related to work, (2) The COVID-19 situation diffuses the demarcation between the various professional arenas and the private sphere, and this diffusion enhances the stress associated with norm conflict, and (3) Norm conflicts are enhanced by digitalization. Our discussion centers on potential stressors associated with the renegotiation of norms, and also includes a few suggestions for practice. For each theoretical suggestion, we give examples of how the suggestion may manifest itself with respect to (a) the work task, (b) the individual's relationship to their leader and/or organization, and (c) interpersonal relationships. We finally point to some theoretical and applied implications.

To Regulate or Not to Regulate: Emotion Regulation in Participants With Low and High Impulsivity

Successful emotion regulation plays a key role in psychological health and well-being. This study examines (1) whether cognitive control and corresponding neural connectivity are associated with emotion regulation and (2) to what extent external instructions can improve emotion regulation in individuals with low vs. high cognitive control capacity. For this, emotion regulation capabilities and the impact of emotion regulation on a subsequent emotional Stroop task was tested in participants with low (N = 25) vs. high impulsivity (N = 32). The classification according to impulsivity is based upon the stable correlation between high impulsivity and reduced cognitive control capacity. A negative emotion inducing movie scene was presented with the instruction to either suppress or allow all emotions that arose. This was followed by an emotional Stroop task. Electromyography (EMG) over the corrugator supercilii was used to assess the effects of emotion regulation. Neurophysiological mechanisms were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy over frontal brain areas. While EMG activation was low in the low-impulsive group independent of instruction, high-impulsive participants showed increased EMG activity when they were not explicitly instructed to suppress arising emotions. Given the same extent of functional connectivity within frontal lobe networks, the low-impulsive participants controlled their emotions better (less EMG activation) than the high-impulsive participants. In the Stroop task, the low-impulsive subjects performed significantly better. The emotion regulation condition had no significant effect on the results. We conclude that the cognitive control network is closely associated with emotion regulation capabilities. Individuals with high cognitive control show implicit capabilities for emotion regulation. Individuals with low cognitive control require external instructions (= explicit emotion regulation) to achieve similarly low expressions of emotionality. Implications for clinical applications aiming to improve emotion regulation are discussed.

Influence of Ego Depletion on Individual Forgiveness in Different Interpersonal Offense Situations

Forgiveness, as an important content in the field of morality, means that the offended person overcomes the negative emotion, cognition, and behavior toward the offender and replaces it with positive emotion, cognition, and behavior. Based on the theory of the limitation of psychological resources, ego depletion (ED) will lead to the weakening of self-regulation function, thus making some immoral behaviors, which is not conducive to individual forgiveness. In order to explore the influence of ED on individual forgiveness in different interpersonal offense situations, this study used the Stroop task to manipulate the level of ED and used imaginary situations to distinguish offending situations. We found that the level of forgiveness in a serious offense situation was significantly lower than that in a mild offense situation, p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.158. In different interpersonal offense situations, ED has different effects on forgiveness. In the severe offense situation, the forgiveness level of high-ED individuals was significantly lower than that of the low-ED individuals, p = 0.023, partial η² = 0.144; in the mild offense situation, the forgiveness level of high-ED individuals was significantly higher than that of low-ED individuals, p = 0.029, partial η² = 0.140. The results showed that different levels of ED have no consistent effect on forgiveness in different interpersonal offense situations; high ED hinders individual forgiveness in serious offense situations but can promote individual forgiveness in mild offense situations.

Why some leaders qualify for hate: an empirical examination through the lens of followers’ perspective

Purpose

The leaders’ perception about self and the opinion of the subordinates about them is crucial to understand why some leaders qualify for hate. Much has been discussed on the positive and ethical side of leadership. However, the research on the darker side of leadership needs more attention. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the factors along with their impact responsible for hate-for-leaders, a relatively scant area of leadership. This study may facilitate understanding why some leaders become subject to hate despite many efforts by the organization.

Design/methodology/approach

For exploring the different factors responsible for hate-for-leaders, a survey was conducted by developing a scale using the focus group, Delphi technique, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The results were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Findings

The factors responsible for qualifying the leaders for hate were identified. Moreover, the results indicated that the subordinate hate the leaders for his/her unacceptable behaviour/actions which they assume the leader has control over it and exhibited otherwise intentionally on targeted employees. Moreover, some undesirable behaviour of leaders is attributed to fundamental attribution errors i.e. situational factors.

Practical implications

A fully developed scale for assessing the hate-quotient for leaders is proposed. This research will facilitate the managers/leaders as to why some of the followers/employees hate them. This scale provides an opportunity for managers and leaders to introspect themselves for improved workplace relationships and not to encourage sunflower management that seeks to get submissive and aligned-thought employees around the leader.

Originality/value

The fact that the decisions taken by managers/leaders adversely affecting the employees are not always because of malice or wrong intentions but sometimes due to situational factors i.e. fundamental attribution error. Moreover, the scale act as a reference to evaluate the hate-for-leaders in the organizational context.