Abstract: According to the strength model of self-control, self-control refers to limited capacity that people employ to override undesirable thoughts, emotions and behaviors. This model proposes that initial exertion of self-control consumes limited resources, which reduce performance of subsequent tasks involving self-control. This effect is called self-control resources depletion (aka. ego depletion). It further argues that ego depletion can be circumvented by a variety of approaches. The process of making decision is both influenced by analytic system and experiential system. It has been unraveled that analytic system is damaged by ego depletion, leading people to depend more on the experiential system to make a decision. Under this circumstance, people may fail in evaluating the risks and benefits, which promotes the occurrence of risk behaviors. Therefore, the current study assumes that ego depletion may promote risk behaviors. In addition, the present study also hypothesizes that having participants to drink lemonade mixed with glucose can alleviate the negative effect of ego depletion on risk-taking behavior than in the condition who have lemonade without glucose. Two experiments were designed to test these ideas. In experiment 1, a congruent or incongruent Stroop task was used to manipulate participants’ self-control resources. The rationale of this task is people should control the predominant tendency to name the word when they are required to speak aloud the color, which consumes a lot of self-control resources. After completing the Stroop task, participants were required to answer three manipulation checks and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) before working on the balloon analogue risk task (BART) which was to test their risk-taking behavior. In experiment 2, ego depletion was manipulated by a “writing with non-dominant hand” task. The rationale of this task is that right-handed people in this right-handed world have established a firm habitual of using their right hands. Thus it would be hard for them to use their non-dominant hand to do something (e.g., writing). Tremendous self-control resources have to be employed because they must exert self-control to complete such task. After finishing writing the paper, respondents were also asked to fill in three manipulation checks and the PANAS. Finally, they completed the BART after having a glass of beverage with or without approximately 400 calories. In both experiments, Trait Self-control Scale and Risk Preference Index were first administered to participants before they undertook the ego depletion tasks. After ruling out some possible intervening variables (e.g., trait self-control level, risk preference and mood), participants in the condition of high self-control resources depletion risked more to get greater reward than those in the condition of low self-control resources depletion (experiment 1 and 2). More important, when in the state of high self-control resources depletion, people who had beverage containing glucose risked less than those drinking the beverage without glucose (experiment 2), suggesting that supplementing physiological energy could effectively mitigate the negative effect of self-control resources depletion on risk-taking behavior. In sum, the present study demonstrated that ego depletion indeed promotes risk-taking behavior, and this effect can be moderated by physiological energy supplement.

Key words: self-control resources, ego depletion, risk-taking behavior, physiological energy

摘要： 基于自我控制资源模型，本研究探讨了自我损耗对冒险行为的影响以及生理能量补充在其中的缓解作用。实验1和实验2分别通过“Stroop”和“非利手写作”任务操纵被试的自我损耗，两个实验均用气球模拟风险决策任务考察被试的冒险行为，并且通过摄入含有或不含有葡萄糖的柠檬水来操纵生理能量水平。结果发现，在排除无关变量后，高损耗者比低损耗者尽可能多地对气球进行充气以寻求奖赏(实验1和实验2)，但饮用含葡萄糖的柠檬水能够有效降低这种反应(实验2)。该研究证实了自我损耗促进冒险行为，补充生理能量能有效缓解该效应。

关键词: 自我控制资源, 自我损耗, 冒险行为, 生理能量