The Influence Of Ego-depletion On College Athletes’ Rational Risk-taking Behavior

Athletes’self-control is always a important research topic in the field of sports. As is mentioned in Baumeister’s self-control strength model, human’s self-control is a limited resource, once used, it may lead to ego-depletion. The risk-taking behavior can be divided into two categories:emotional risk-taking behavior and rational risk-taking behavior. The rational risk-taking behavior means that when making a decision, the individuals need to have rational trade-offs facing different results. Athletes in the competition need to make rational choice from many situations, they may make different choice with different state. This paper is based on the model of self-control resources, to investigate the ego-depletion’s effect on the rational risk-taking behavior.In this study, three pre-designed experiments and three formal experiments have been designed to investigate the ego-depletion’s effect on the rational risk-taking behavior. Pre-designed experiment one used the Chinese version of E-crossing task as the depletion task to inspect its depletion effect. The results show that:The Chinese version of E-crossing task has good depletion effect. Specificly in the Stroop task, the group of depletion spent longer time to react than the group of non-depletion. Pre-designed experiment two used the Chinese version of E-crossing task as detection task, chosen the same material in experiment one to check the test results. It was found that, compared with the non-depletion group, the depletion group spent significantly more time to complete E-crossing task than the other group. And the correct number was lower, the wrong number was higher; In the condition of non-depletion, there were no significant differences in completing E-crossing task based on either scientific material or movement situation; While in the condition of depletion, the task based on movement situation was completed significantly quicker than that based on scientific material. It means that the Chinese version of E-crossing task has good detection effect, especially much better when performed in movement situation. Pre-designed experiment three was to contrast the two detection effect of E-crossing task and Stroop task, from the perspective on effect sizes, detection effect of E-crossing was supeor to that of the Stroop task. The formal experiments focused on examining the negative impact of ego-depletion on the rational risk-taking behavior, its hypothesis is that when people appear ego-depletion, they will reduce selecting and implementing the rational risk-taking behavior. Experiment1was to check the effect which ego-depletion had on the identity of others’rational risk-taking behaviours, focusing on inspection attitude. The research showed that there was no significant difference on the attitude between the two. Experiment2deepened attitude and turns to behaviors, further exploring the effect which ego-depletion had on the identity of others’rational risk-taking behaviours. The result showed that participants who experienced ego-depletion got lower marks than those who didn’t when they were faced with rational risk-taking behaviours. That is, participants who have ego-depletion are more likely to choose and take safe actions. In order to test the external validity of the experiment, experiment3explored effect which ego-depletion had on rational risk-taking behaviours in a real darts competion. The result showed that participants who didn’t experience ego-depletion got higher marks than those who experienced it when they met with rational risk-taking behaviours. That is, participants who have ego-depletion experience are more likely to choose and take safe actions.The Chinese version of E-crossing task has a good ego-depletioninducing effect and detection effect, its detection effect is superior to the traditional Stroop task; Ego-depletion will have negative effect on rational risk-taking behavior, but attitude and behavior appear separation results. Only in behavior, high ego-depletion people tend to choose and implement safety behavior. The results show that, For promoting athletes to pursuit to be excellent and like to take risk-taking behavior, we should set up more training for them in the sports, help them form automated response mode and adjusting strategy. So that they can save resources for self-control, thus to get a good mark through taking risks.