Beliefs About Willpower Moderate The Effect of Previous Day Demands on Next Day’s Expectations and Effective Goal Striving

Frontiers in Psychology

Veronika eJob¹  Katharina eBernecker¹ 

[1] University of Zurich;

关键词: self-efficacy;    Self-Control;    optimism;    Goal striving;    implicit theories about willpower;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01496

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Research suggests that beliefs about willpower affect self-regulation following previous self-regulatory demands (Job, Dweck, & Walton, 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 previous self-control tasks even activate willpower (nonlimited 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 nonlimited 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】

Unknown