Essay On Ego Depletion

Maranges and Baumeister define self-control as the ability to alter one’s thoughts and behaviors, or override impulses and habits in order to monitor and regulate oneself to meet goals and expectations. Self-control can be linked to ego-depletion, in which constant use of self-control in one context can impair control in other contexts. Cognitive behavioral ego depletion is similar, and pays homage to, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of fixation and regression. Both ideas are due to the damning up and limiting of resources which cause an inability to do something. Ego depletion has been tested using the dual-task paradigm where participants perform two different tasks that are unrelated but require self-control. In support of self-control and ego-depletion, participants performed more poorly on the second task which suggests that a limited resource has been used up in the first task making it more difficult to perform well on the second task. Since self-control affects controlled processes specifically, top-down control is theorized to be reduced during ego depletion. Meaning, when self-control is low, people rely on habits more. Ego depletion tends to deplete many behaviors and cognitions as well, such as: higher-level cognition, impulse and emotion regulation, inhibition, and explicit attitudes. This can lead to …show more content…
If an individual acquires positive habits in pursuit of a goal, it is possible to automatically self-regulate even in the face of ego depletion. The individual would continue this positive habit without having to control their behavior or have conscious awareness. In other words, cognition (“O”) is not needed to pursue a goal, only the stimulus and response (“S” and “R”). External cues and priming can activate these goal-directed behaviors and experience can strengthen (reinforce) the