Effects Of Social Exclusion On Ego Depletion: The Compensation Effect Of Self-awareness

The proposition of ego depletion is based on the strength model of self-control, it is the phenomenon when self-control failed, which people unwilling to control themselves. Social exclusion is a phenomenon or process which people excluded by others or groups. According to the self-control failure theory of the social exclusion and the strength model of self-control, social exclusion may affect the ego depletion. Ego depletion could cause aggressive behavior, bad emotion and so on. During recent years, researchers had found that there were several methods to compensate the influence of the ego depletion. Self-awareness refers to the inner subjective state of individual when he is aware of himself. Previous research has consistently demonstrated a unidirectional link between self-awareness and self-control, that self-awareness increases self-control performance. Based on these, we expect that self-awareness can compensate the influence of ego depletion, which also can compensate the ego depletion caused by social exclusion.With Chinese college students as participants, there are three experiments in this study. In Experiment 1, the aim was to explore the effects of social exclusion on the ego depletion. This experiment used the recall writing paradigm and the real condition rejection method to initiate the social exclusion. It was a 2(exclusion situation: the recall vs. the real)×3(exclusion type: the rejected vs. the accepted vs. the controlled) between-group design. In the recall condition, the subjects should recall and write the experience of exclusion or acceptation, or the activity of yesterday. In the real condition, the subjects were told that they were joining in an interflow activity. After this, all the subjects should finish the Brief Mood Introspection Scale to test their mood state and use the self-rating depression scale to evaluate the sense of exclusion. The experiment used Stroop task to measure ego depletion. The results showed that the main effect of social exclusion is significant, social exclusion would induce the ego depletion. In Experiment 2, the aim was to explore the compensation of self-awareness on the ego depletion. This experiment used cross “e” paradigm to initiate ego depletion, and also use the word-search test to prime self-awareness, which was a common kind paradigm of self-awareness’ s priming. The experiment also used the Stroop task as the method of the ego depletion measurement. It was a 2(ego depletion: initiate vs. non initiate) ×2(self-awareness: prime vs. non prime) between-group design. All the subjects would finish the ego depletion initiation task(cross ‘e’ task) first, then the subjects completed the BMIS to test their mood state, and then they operated the test of self-awareness’ s priming, at last, they completed the Stroop task. The results showed that, the main effect of ego depletion initiation and self-awareness was significant and the interaction of the ego depletion and self-awareness was also significant. Experiment 3 would explore the compensate of self-awareness on ego depletion which arouse by the social exclusion. This experiment used the same method to arouse social exclusion. It was a 2(exclusion situation: the recall vs. the real)×3(exclusion type: the rejected vs. the accepted vs. the controlled)×2(self-awareness: prime vs. non prime) between-group design, After the social exclusion operation, all the subjects evaluated the sense of exclusion by themselves, and then finished the BMIS. Then the subjects operated the task of self-awareness’ s priming, at last, all the subjects finished the Stroop task. The results showed that, the main effect of social exclusion and self-awareness was significant, and the interaction of social and self-awareness was also significant, the results also showed that, the main effect of exclusion situation was significant.In this research, we conclude that social exclusion has effects on ego depletion, self-awareness can compensate the effects of the ego depletion, which also can compensate the effects of the social exclusion on ego depletion.