The Role of Self-Control Resource in Intertemporal Decision-making

Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (6): 1445-1451.

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The Role of Self-Control Resource in Intertemporal Decision-making

Gui-Bing HE¹,Xiang-Hui YAN²,³

1.
2. Chengdu Normal Universty
3. Zhejiang University

Received:2014-11-19 Revised:2015-02-28 Online:2015-11-20 Published:2015-11-20
Contact: Xiang-Hui YAN

自我控制资源水平及其变化对跨期选择的影响

何贵兵¹,晏祥辉¹,²

1. 浙江大学
2. 成都师范学院

通讯作者: 晏祥辉
基金资助:
国家自然科学基金

Abstract

Abstract:

The failure of self-control has been considered to be associated with criminal behavior, smoking, dieting, and even divorcing. The reason why self-control may fail is supposed to be that people has limited capacity for self-regulation. According to the theory of Limited Self-Control Resource (SCR), differences in self-regulation performance must be due to the difference in amount of SCR. Hagger, Wood, Stiff & Chatzisarantis (2010) summarized that SCR had significant impact on self-control behavior, but the role of SCR in intertemporal decision-making, which supposed to involve impulsivity and self-regulation, was still unclear. Based on the theory of SCR and previous studies, we designed two experiments to reveal the effects of SCR level and its variation on intertemporal decision-making. Experiment 1 investigated the effect of individual’s SCR level on intertemporal decision-making in natural condition via questionnaire. Experiment 2 used a dual-task paradigm to examine the effects of SCR manipulation tasks and SCR variation on intertemporal decision-making. The results of Exp.1 demonstrated that participants with higher SCR level showed stronger preference to SS option in intertemporal decision-making. Exp. 2 showed that (1) different SCR manipulation tasks lead to different SCR change and SS preference in intertemporal decision-making. Perception-control task caused more SCR depletion and stronger SS preference than thought-control task did. (2) Higher proportion of participants experienced SCR depletion and less experienced SCR enhancement in perception-control group, than that in thought-control group. (3) Participants who experienced SCR depletion exhibited a significant increase of SS preference, but who experienced SCR enhancement would exhibit a significant decrease of SS preference. (4) The initial preference of SS (SS1), pre-decision SCR level (SCR2) and SCR fluctuation experience had jointly effects on intertemporal decision-making. These findings proved the important role of self-control resource in intertemporal decision-making by means of both group level analysis and individual level analysis. In addition, these results should have benefits to understanding the mechanism of how and why SCR fluctuated after the execution of different SCR manipulation task.

摘要：

自我控制资源（SCR）是个体执行自我控制活动时所需的有限心理资源，本文通过两项实验探讨个体的SCR水平与SCR变化对跨期选择的影响。结果发现：（1）控制知觉加工组和控制想法组在执行SCR操作任务后，其整体SCR下降，SS偏好增强；（2）控制知觉加工组的SCR降幅和SS偏好增幅均显著高于控制想法组；（3）SCR下降的被试在后测SS偏好和SS偏好增幅上都显著高于SCR不变和上升的被试，但SCR上升被试与不变被试的差异不显著。与以往研究相比，本研究采用了个体水平分析思路，揭示了个体SCR变化方向与跨期偏好的关系，并发现了两种SCR操作任务的效应差异。

Gui-Bing HE Xiang-Hui YAN. The Role of Self-Control Resource in Intertemporal Decision-making[J]. Psychological Science, 2015, 38(6): 1445-1451.

何贵兵晏祥辉. 自我控制资源水平及其变化对跨期选择的影响[J]. 心理科学, 2015, 38(6): 1445-1451.

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The Role of Self-Control Resource in Intertemporal Decision-making

自我控制资源水平及其变化对跨期选择的影响

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