The Relationship Between Self-Affirmation And Ego-Depletion

Self control causes ego-depletion which leads to lower mental toughness and poorer subsequent task performance. The negative effect on the performance of athletes brought by ego-depletion should not be ignored. Therefore, exploring methods to cope with ego-depletion, to decreasing the negative effect is especially important. On the basis of previous studies, this research was aimed at testing the hypothesis that affirming important values of self could counteract ego-depletion, with Stroop as the performance evaluation. It also tested if relational self was the better affirming source of values according to the specific Chinese culture feature. This research was supposed to provide an available way to cope with the negative effect of ego-depletion.In the first study,40 participants completed the experiment (15 participants were male and 25 were female with the average age 22.075±2.347). Part of participants watched a video while controlled their attention. Then they affirmed the values of self or other people. It was found that affirming values of self after self control could significantly improve the performance on Stroop task. It implied that affirming values of self could counteract ego-depletion while affirming other people'values couldn't.In the second study,188 participants filled Self-Construal Scale which was used to discriminate the different propensities of participants. Participants who got the top 27% grades were defined as independent or relational propensity. According to this regulation, both independent and relational group had 40 participants (31 participants were male and 48 were female with the average age 21.076±1.920. One participant information is lost.). After self controlling task, they affirmed the individual or relational values and completed Stroop task. It was found that both individual and relational values of self worked for participants in individual self group. Relational values worked for participants in relational self group while individual values not. This study supported the theory of ego-depletion again. It justified that affirming important values of self could counteract ego-depletion with Stroop as the performance evaluation. It proposed and tested that relational self was the better affirming source in Chinese culture. It also showed the collective propensity of self concept in Chinese.