Psychological Stress Impact On Effect Of Ego Depletion

The effect of ego depletion means that acts of self-control on task will make people less able to exert self-control on a subsequent task, the core behind ego depletion is that the selfs acts of volition draw on some limited resource. Many previous studies suggested the relationship between failure of self-control and stress, they attributed failure of self-control to stress. However, some researcher indicated that not all self-control consumes self-control strength, only acts that requires an exertion of effort or overcome advantage response would consume the strength. So here comes the question: Will the acute stress result in ego depletion? Under the condition of stress,will the self-control result in more ego depletion?Present study used a dual task paradigm of ego-depletion, took aggressive behavior and reaction time and accuracy rate of the stroop task as the main dependent variable, tested the effect of psychological stress and self-control on ego depletion through two experiments.Study1investigated whether psychological stress would lead to ego depletion. Using single factor between-subjects designs, present research take stress condition (stress vs. without stress) as independent variable, aggressive behavior as dependent variable(Level5rating). The results didn’t support our hypothesis that psychological stress would result in more aggressive behavior, which means that the effects of ego depletion didn’t happen.Study2aimed to further test the influence of sress on ego depletion and verify that under the condition of stress, will the self-control result in more ego depletion. In the experiment, the2(stress vs. without stress)×2(self-control vs. without self-control) experimental designs were adopted. Study2replicated the effect of stress and found significant interaction on ego deleption. In the stress condition, participants who had been depleted took significantly longer time to complete the stroop task.Present research has provided further evidence to the theory which supported the resource of self-control is limited, meanwhile, enriched and developed the relationship between psychological stress and ego deleption. It makes some theoretical and practical contribution to the development of ego deleption.