The Effects Of Ego-depletion And Social Norm On Cooperative Behavior

As a limited psychological resource,self-regulation is helpful for human beings to resist temptation and behave socially.Based on the strength model of self-control,when self-control resources are depleted to a certain extent,individuals are likely to go through “ego-depletion”.Abundant evidences indicate that ego-depletion can directly increase self-serving behavior,leading to the failure of cooperation.However,in recent years,some researchers have proposed that as ego-depletion increases the susceptibility of situational cues,lack of self-control may result in selfishness or cooperation,depending on what situational cues advocate,which brings a new perspective for the intervention of ego-depletion after effect.As a kind of situational cues,social norm can guide and shape cooperative behavior.Therefore,this study explores the impact of ego-depletion on cooperation,wondering whether social norms can effectively alleviate ego-depletion after effect,especially focusing on the role of descriptive norm and injunctive norm.In Study1,a complete randomalized design(one-factor)with a "no-cross writing" task was used to explore the effect of ego-depletion on cooperative behavior.The results revealed that the level of cooperative behavior in high depleted group were significantly lower than those in low depleted group,namely ego depletion after effect.In Study2,we used 2(depletion: high/low)×2(social norm: descriptive/injunctive)between-subject design with a Stroop task to probe into the influence of ego depletion and social norms on cooperative behavior in two-round dictator game.The results indicated that descriptive norm encouraged more cooperative behaviors than injunctive norm in the second round of dictator games,especially for high depleted groups.Moreover,by comparing the average distribution of two rounds in dictator games,we found that descriptive norm(rather than injunctive norm)could significantly increase cooperative behaviors for high depleted participants,but the ego depletion after effect still existed.In Study3,a 2(depletion: high/low)×3(social norm: norm-conflict/norm-congruence/ control)between-subjects experimental design was made to probe into the role of conflicted and congruent norms in ego-depletion after effect in one round dictator game with the Chinese version of e-crossing task.The results showed that conflicted norm significantly impaired cooperation for all participants,corrupting ego depletion after effect,while congruent norm effectively overcame ego-depletion after effect and induced much more cooperative behaviors for the high depleted group but not the low depleted group.We made the following conclusions:(1)Ego-depletion can reduce actual distribution in Dictator game,namely ego-depletion after effect in cooperation.(2)Activating social norm alone can significantly improve the level of cooperative behavior in high depletion groups,partially alleviating ego-depletion effect.Compared with injunctive norm,descriptive norm can induce more cooperative behaviors and promote more selfish behaviors into cooperative behaviors.(3)Conflicted norm can damage individual’s cooperative behavior,especially aggravating ego depletion effect,while congruent norm can promote cooperative behaviors in high depletion group,effectively overcoming ego-depletion effect,but has no significant effect on low depletion group.