The Effects Of Ego-Depletion On Self-Efficacy

Self-control plays a very important role for an athlete. Athletes need to control themself continuously in training and competition, including keeping a focus attention, maintaining a rational way of thinking and a positive mental state. On the one hand, self-control depletes self-control resources, and on the other hand, self-control leads to ego-depletion.Ego-depletion refers to the decreasing of self-control resources. In addition, self-efficacy is an indispensible disposition for an athlete. As the faith of one's own ability to succeed, self-efficacy especially prone to volatility, especially in the crucial points of match. This paper discusses the effect of ego-depletion on self-efficacy. The researcher hypothesis, ego-depletion may be harmful to self-efficacy. The author verified the hypothesis by three studies, including eight experiments.Study 1 investigated the influence of ego depletion on self-efficacy through 2 experimants. Experiment 1 discussed the influences of ego-depletion on general self-efficacy. Participants found that the differences on scale scores between ego-depletion and non ego-depletion participants is not statistically significant. Experiment 2a discussed the influences of ego-depletion on cognitive task self-efficacy. Experiment 2b discussed the influences of ego-depletion on operation task self-efficacy.Study 2 investigated the moderating effect through 3 experiments. Experiment 3 discusses the moderating effect of optimistic disposition. The results show that both high optimistic participants and low positive participant, who suffered ego-depletion, their self-efficacy would be reduced. Experiment 4 discusses the moderating effect of the different level of dart throwing task, Results show that when fininsh the more difficult level of throwing task, the self-efficacy of the ego depletion participants are lower. Experiment 5 explores the moderating effect of stress situations. The results show that under pressure situation, the self-efficacy of the ego depletion participants are lower.Study 3 investigated how to overcome the derease of self-efficacy by ego depletion through 2 experiments. The experiment 6a explored how the monetary reward compensation the decrease of self-efficacy by ego-depletioon. The results show that compared with the participants who receive no compensation, the ego depletion participants who received money rewards have more self-confidence. The experiment 6b discussed how the exemplar priming compensation the decrease of self-efficacy by ego-depletioon.From cognitive tasks, and then to the operation task, the final transition to dart throwing task, though as a dependent variable task has changed, but the result of ego-depletion decreasing self-efficacy has not changed. The 3 research consistently shows that the ego-depletion decreased self-efficacy. This suggests that athletes are likely to be lack of self-efficacy when in the key match.