The relation between fluid intelligence and self-regulatory depletion

The Effect of Preceding Self-Control on Green Consumption Behavior: The Moderating Role of Moral Elevation

Background

Studies have shown that individuals restrain their egoistic desires to benefit others (eg, the natural world), which require a higher-order psychological process, such as self-control. Therefore, performing a preceding self-control task may subsequently decrease green consumption behavior. However, whether and how moral elevation, which is an important type of positive incidental emotion, moderates the negative effect of exerting self-control on green consumption behavior remains unknown.

Purpose

The present study aimed to examine how exerting self-control and moral elevation influenced green consumption behavior.

Methods

The product choice task that requires participants to make choices between buying environmentally friendly (eco-friendly) and cheaper (self-interest) products is an index of green consumption behavior. In Experiment 1, we adopted the incongruent Stroop task to induce the exertion of self-control, and participants were asked to make choices in the product choice task. In Experiment 2, participants were provided with moral elevating videos to elicit moral elevation during the interval between the Stroop and product choice tasks.

Results

Experiment 1 indicated that, relative to the congruent Stroop task (the control condition), completing the incongruent Stroop task led to less environmentally friendly choices. Experiment 2 indicated that the participants who watched the elevating video in the incongruent Stroop task condition chose environmentally friendly products with greater frequency compared to those who watched the neutral video. Furthermore, the analyses showed that self-reported moral elevation partly moderated the effect of the exertion of self-control on green consumption behavior.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that the exertion of self-control has a negative effect on green consumption behavior; however, moral elevation can counteract this negative effect of exerting self-control on green consumption behavior.

Neuroanatomy of complex social emotion dysregulation in adolescent offenders

Social emotions require the correct integration of emotional, cognitive, and social processes and are critical for complex social interactions. Adolescent criminal offenders (AOs) show abnormalities in the experience of basic emotions. However, most research has focused solely on basic emotions, neglecting complex social emotions that could be critical for social reintegration. The purpose of this study was to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates of social emotions (envy and Schadenfreude) in AOs. We explored the experience of complex social emotions, as well as their anatomical correlates, in AOs (n = 19) and a nonoffenders control group (NOs, n = 20). Additionally, we assessed the relationship between social emotions, executive functions (EFs), and fluid intelligence (FI). Structural brain imaging was obtained in all participants. The results showed that AOs had significantly lower envy and Schadenfreude ratings and exhibited lower performance in EFs compared with NOs. The measurement of EFs relied on the INECO frontal screening (IFS). Experiencing fewer social emotions was associated with diminished EFs but not with FI. Moreover, in AOs, reduced levels of envy and Schadenfreude were linked with reduced gray matter volumes in regions subserving mentalizing abilities (inferior parietal lobe and precuneus) and socioemotional processing (inferior and middle temporal regions), as well as key hubs of the executive frontoparietal network (inferior parietal lobule, orbital and rectus gyri). Additional analysis on the AOs revealed no associations between the type of crime and our variables of interest (EFs, FI and social emotions). Our findings are the first to provide evidence on abnormalities in the experience of social emotions in AOs that are associated with neurocognitive markers of social cognition and EFs. Understanding social emotions and their abnormalities (under-experience) as complex intertwined processes may have important future translational implications, including risk prediction for social adaptation/reintegration, sociocognitive targeted interventions, and skill training for social emotions in vulnerable populations.

Self-Regulation Failure Reduces the Effect Alcohol Portrayals in Movies on Indirect Attitudes toward Alcohol

We investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying change in implicit cognitions following exposure to alcohol portrayals. More precisely, we tested in an experimental study whether this change depends on controlled or automatic processes by putting participants in a state of self-regulatory fatigue prior to being exposed to alcohol portrayals. Ninety participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (attitude measure: before vs after) × 2 (alcohol portrayal: yes vs no) × 2 (ego depletion: yes vs no) mixed design to assess whether the effects of alcohol portrayals affected cognitive resources. It was hypothesized that alcohol portrayals would have more of an impact on participants submitted to an ego-depletion task. We found a change in attitudes toward alcohol only for participants that had been exposed to alcohol portrayals, and who had not been cognitively depleted. These results suggest that these changes rely on controlled, resource-dependent processes rather than on purely associative and automatic processes. Implications regarding alcohol advertising effects on public health are discussed.

The Limits of Ego Depletion

Abstract. Evidence on the existence of the ego depletion phenomena as well as the size of the effects and potential moderators and mediators are ambiguous. Building on a crossover design that enables superior statistical power within a single study, we investigated the robustness of the ego depletion effect between and within subjects and moderating and mediating influences of the ego depletion manipulation checks. Our results, based on a sample of 187 participants, demonstrated that (a) the between- and within-subject ego depletion effects only had negligible effect sizes and that there was (b) large interindividual variability that (c) could not be explained by differences in ego depletion manipulation checks. We discuss the implications of these results and outline a future research agenda.

Future Time Perspective Impacts Gain-Related but Not Loss-Related Intertemporal Choice

Future time perspective (FTP) modulates individuals’ temporal orientation in selecting their motivations and goals, which widely influences their cognitions and behaviors. However, it remains unclear how FTP exactly affects intertemporal choice. To clarify the effect of FTP on intertemporal choice, 90 college students (M_age = 21.70, SD = 1.23) were randomly assigned to the limited FTP condition (16 males, 29 females) and the open-ended FTP condition (17 males, 28 females). In the limited FTP condition, participants were instructed to imagine their states of being 70 years old, whereas in the open-ended FTP condition, they were instructed to describe their current states. All participants then completed a series of intertemporal choice tasks, in which they chose from gain- and loss-related choices occurring at various time points. Results showed that the participants who received the future-imagining manipulation had more limited FTP compared with those who did not receive the manipulation, which confirmed the validity of the FTP manipulation. A 2 (FTP: limited vs. open-ended) × 2 (type of choice: gain vs. loss) repeated measures ANOVA on discount rate revealed a significant interaction between these two factors. The participants in the limited FTP condition had higher discount rates on gain-related choices but showed no difference on loss-related choices compared with the participants under the open-ended FTP condition. The results suggest that limited FTP could lower individuals’ future orientation (i.e., willingness to delay an outcome) on gain-related, but not on loss-related, intertemporal decision-making.

Is Ego Depletion Real? An Analysis of Arguments

An influential line of research suggests that initial bouts of self-control increase the susceptibility to self-control failure (ego depletion effect). Despite seemingly abundant evidence, some researchers have suggested that evidence for ego depletion was the sole result of publication bias and p-hacking, with the true effect being indistinguishable from zero. Here, we examine (a) whether the evidence brought forward against ego depletion will convince a proponent that ego depletion does not exist and (b) whether arguments that could be brought forward in defense of ego depletion will convince a skeptic that ego depletion does exist. We conclude that despite several hundred published studies, the available evidence is inconclusive. Both additional empirical and theoretical works are needed to make a compelling case for either side of the debate. We discuss necessary steps for future work toward this aim.

Executive functions in adolescents with binge-eating disorder and obesity

OBJECTIVE

Binge-eating disorder (BED) in adults is associated with alterations in executive functions (EF) and obesity. Much less is known about these relationships in adolescents, including whether poor EF are associated with eating disorder psychopathology and/or elevated body mass index. This study examined EF in response to neutral stimuli in youth with BED.

METHOD

Adolescents with BED and obesity (n = 22), individually matched adolescents with obesity (n = 22), and normal weight (n = 22) completed neuropsychological tests targeting inhibition (Color-Word Interference Test), sustained attention (D2 Concentration Endurance Test), cognitive flexibility (Comprehensive Trail Making Test), and decision-making (Iowa Gambling Task).

RESULTS

Adolescents with BED and obesity displayed significantly poorer inhibitory control compared to normal-weight adolescents. This effect persisted after controlling for the level of secondary education. However, initial differences between adolescents with obesity and normal-weight controls regarding inhibitory control and sustained attention vanished after controlling for education. The three groups did not differ regarding cognitive flexibility and decision-making. Moreover, adolescents with BED and obesity did not perform worse than adolescents with obesity on any of the neuropsychological tests.

DISCUSSION

Overall, our results indicate that adolescent BED is associated with only a few alterations in general EF, specifically inhibitory control, and underline BED and educational level as confounding factors in neuropsychological research on obesity. To further delineate EF profiles of adolescents with BED, future research should focus on EF in response to disorder-related stimuli and experimental settings with high ecological validity.

Better executive function under stress mitigates the effects of recent life stress exposure on health in young adults

Executive function is a neuropsychological construct that enables controlled cognitive processing, which has been hypothesized to enhance individuals' resilience to stress. However, little empirical work has directly examined how executive function under different conditions mitigates the negative effects of stress exposure on health. To address this issue, we recruited 110 healthy young adults and assessed their recent life stress exposure, executive function in either a stressful or non-stressful context, and current health complaints. Based on existing research, we hypothesized that individuals exhibiting better executive function following a laboratory-based stressor (but not a control task) would demonstrate weaker associations between recent stress exposure and health because they perceived recent life stressors as being less severe. Consistent with this hypothesis, better executive function during acute stress, but not in the absence of stress, was associated with an attenuated link between participants' recent life stress exposure and their current health complaints. Moreover, this attenuating effect was mediated by lesser perceptions of stressor severity. Based on these data, we conclude that better executive function under stress is associated with fewer health complaints and that these effects may occur by reducing individuals' perceptions of stressor severity. The data thus suggest the possibility of reducing stress-related health problems by enhancing executive function.

The Effect of Implicit Preferences on Food Consumption: Moderating Role of Ego Depletion and Impulsivity

Ego depletion has been found to moderate the effect of implicit preferences on food consumption, such that implicit preferences predict consumption only under a depleted state. The present study tested how trait impulsivity impacts the effect of implicit preferences on food consumption in a depleted condition. Trait impulsivity was measured by means of self-report and a stop signal task. Results showed that both self-reported impulsivity and behavioral impulsivity moderated the 'depletion and then eating according to implicit preferences' effect, albeit in different ways. Participants high in self-reported impulsivity and low in behavioral impulsivity were more vulnerable to the effect of depletion on eating. The implications of these results for extant theories are discussed. Future research is needed to verify whether or not trait impulsivity is associated with vulnerability to depletion across different self-control domains.

The Benefits of Self-Set Goals: Is Ego Depletion Really a Result of Self-Control Failure?

Research on ego depletion aims at explaining self-control failures in daily life. Both resource models and motivational accounts have been proposed for explanation. The aim of the present research was to test the different assumptions in two dual-task experiments where we operationalized ego depletion as a performance deviation from a self-set goal. In two experiments, we found evidence for this deviation contradicting motivational accounts of ego depletion: Participants experiencing ego depletion set themselves a stricter instead of a more lenient goal than controls, in that they chose to eat less cookies or wanted to perform better. Moreover, only participants without an initial self-control task could adhere to their self-set goal, whereas participants in the ego depletion condition in both experiments could not follow through with their more ambitious intentions. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the importance of goals in ego depletion research.

The Impact of Illusory Fatigue on Executive Control

The human mind is quite adept at modifying and regulating thoughts, judgments, and behaviors. Recent research has demonstrated that depletion of self-regulatory resources can impair executive function through restriction of working memory capacity. The current work explored whether the mere perception of resource depletion (i.e., illusory fatigue) is sufficient to directly produce these deficits in executive control. To manipulate illusory fatigue, participants were exposed to a depleting or nondepleting task before being presented with false feedback about the effects of the initial task on their state of resource depletion. Participants then completed a well-established index of working memory capacity. Findings revealed that individuals provided with feedback that led to perceptions of low depletion exhibited greater working memory capacity. This effect was independent of individuals' actual state of depletion and was furthermore mediated by their perceived level of depletion. Implications for spontaneous resource replenishment are discussed.

Increasing negative emotions by reappraisal enhances subsequent cognitive control: a combined behavioral and electrophysiological study

To what degree do cognitively based strategies of emotion regulation impact subsequent cognitive control? Here, we investigated this question by interleaving a cognitive task with emotion regulation trials, where regulation occurred through cognitive reappraisal. In addition to obtaining self-reports of emotion regulation, we used the late positive potential (LPP) of the event-related brain potential as an objective index of emotion regulation. On each trial, participants maintained, decreased, or increased their emotional response to an unpleasant picture and then responded to a Stroop stimulus. Results revealed that (1) the magnitude of the LPP was decreased with reappraisal instructions to decrease negative emotion and were enhanced with reappraisal instructions to increase negative emotion; (2) after cognitive reappraisal was used to increase the intensity of negative emotion, RT interference in the subsequent Stroop trial was significantly reduced; and (3) increasing negative emotions by reappraisal also modulated the cognitive control-related sustained potential. These results suggest that increasing negative emotions by cognitive reappraisal heightens cognitive control, which may be sustained for a short time after the regulation event.