The Mechanism Of Glucose Affects Ego-depletion

In real life, self-control failures were common occurrences. An important reason for the failure of self-regulation was ego-depletion. About ego-depletion, scholars had done a lot of theory and empirical research, including a large number of study about how to overcome(including prevention and compensation) ego-depletion.In prevention research, some scholars had found that glucose uptake may could effectively reduce ego-depletion and improve self-regulation performance. But some scholars had found that glucose presenting could also achieve the same effect. However, some scholars could not repeat the above two types of experiments, therefore, they thought glucose brought only “sweet illusion”.In view of the contradiction of the above study, based on the classic study, this study sought to further explore the relationship between glucose and ego-depletion. Preliminary experiments tested the effectiveness of Stroop task and Go / Nogo task. Three single factor experiments reveal the mechanism of glucose affect ego-depletion. In Study 1, we found that glucose uptake could effectively reduce the ego-depletion; In Study 2, we found that sweet taste could effectively reduce the ego-depletion; In Study 3, we found that psychological suggestion could effectively reduce the ego-depletion.Based on the above results, the internal mechanisms of glucose affecting ego-depletion may be complex. Glucose may provided physiological energy and mental energy. Glucose uptake or glucose presentation(glucose mouthwash) launched the “energy metaphor“ and caused a series of psychological(brain) activity. In other words, Glucose may affect ego-depletion through physiological metabolism(nerve neural mechanism).