Beliefs about willpower moderate the effect of previous day demands on next day’s expectations and effective goal striving

Frontiers in Psychology

Katharina Bernecker¹ 

关键词: implicit theories about willpower;    goal striving;    self-control;    optimism;    self-efficacy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01496

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Research suggests that beliefs about willpower affect self-regulation following previous self-regulatory demands (Job et al., 2010). Some people believe that their willpower is limited, meaning that after a demanding task it needs to be replenished (limited theory). By contrast, others believe that willpower is not limited and that previous self-control tasks even activate willpower (non-limited theory). We hypothesized that when people experience a demanding day their beliefs about willpower predict their expected capacity to self-regulate and their actual self-regulation on the following day. In a daily diary study (N = 157), we measured students’ daily level of demands, their expected performance in unpleasant tasks, and their effective goal striving. Results showed that following a demanding day, students with a non-limited theory had higher expectations about their progress in unpleasant tasks and were striving more efficiently for their goals than students with a limited theory. These findings suggest that beliefs about willpower affect whether demands experienced on a previous day have positive or negative consequences on people’s self-regulation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY