The Aftereffect And Mechanism Of Autonomy Compensating The Ego-depletion

Self-control is highly conducive to human existence as well as social life.Based on the strength model,the deleterious consequences of prior expenditure of self-control on subsequent task performance is called effect or state of ego-depletion.Studies have found the positive impact of motivation and other factors in compensating for ego-depletion,especially the pivotal role of human autonomy.However,there are no empirical studies to discover which direction that autonomy leads the psychological resources in which are needed by self-control,and show what kind of neural process underlines.Across two experiments this study examined the aftereffect and neural mechanism of autonomy compensating ego-depletion.Study 1 utilized three-task paradigm promoted recently,after the first self-control tasks used to exert different degrees of ego-depletion,three kinds of motivation manipulation including autonomy supportive,controlling condition and neutral condition were implemented in the process of a Stroop task to measure the impact of the autonomy motivation on ego-depletion effect,followed a Go/Nogo task to check the aftereffect of the previous impact.Study 2 involved EEG to measure the ERP components in the similar paradigm but only focus on depleted and two motivation conditions(autonomy supportive and controlling condition),aiming to discover the underlying neural mechanism of autonomy compensating the ego-depletion effect.The results showed that:Study 1: providing autonomy supportive context could enhance the autonomy motivation significantly and decrease the ego-depletion effect,and such influence was caused by motivation and irrelevant to the mood;the participants received autonomy supportive in Stroop task performed better in the following Go/Nogo task comparing to the ones of controlling condition,which implied that the influence on the self-control resources led to more available rather than less.Study also found that the feelings of more autonomy also increased larger post error slowing effect;and the post error slowing effect of the depleted participants were less than the non-depleted ones.Study 2: ERN amplitude was larger under higher autonomy motivation.In the process of autonomy compensating ego-depletion,comparing to ones under controlling condition,participants under autonomy supportive had enhanced P1 amplitude and smaller P3 and N450 amplitude.As for the following Go/Nogo task,comparing to ones under controlling condition,participants under autonomy supportive had shorter N2 latency and smaller P3 amplitude.Study also showed that the trait of an individual’s perceived choice could predict the degree of autonomy after depleted under neutral motivation condition.Based on findings above,the current set of experiments suggest that autonomy can compensate ego-depletion effect and the impact includes two aspects: first,it raises the allocation of the individual’s attention which can help identify the conflict thus demand less effort to impress the conflict and save the self-control energy,the second is that it enhances the error monitoring and the subsequent adjusting processs.These results support the view that autonomy can save self-control resources.