The Moderating Effect Of Other’s Success (Failure) Information On Ego-depletion Effect

Self-control is closely relate to performance. Self-control is often advantageous resource to cope with various challenges in the game. Baumeister et al. (Baumeister et al.,1998) argues that self-control is a limited resource, in case used, the resource of self-control will lose, may lead to ego-depletion, then the subsequent self-control performance is adversely affected. In some closed movement projects, such as trampoline, gymnastics, diving and so on, athletes can see the succeed or failure performance of the frontal athlete. And athletes are often heavily influenced by previous athlete’s successful or failure performance. Then, in different situations of full of self-control and ego-depletion, other athletes’success or failure performance how to influence the next player’ performance? This study investigated the moderating role of other people’ success and failure information on the relationship between ego-depletion and performance.This study designs four pre experiments and four formal experiments to investigate the moderating role of other people’success and failure information on the relationship between ego-depletion and performance. Experiment 1a (n=65 college athlete students) explored the moderating effect of previous athletes’successful and failure performance on ego-depletion effect of a cognitive task in a no pressure condition. The results showed that after watching other athletes’ successful performance, ego-depletion effect was not obvious. After watching other athletes’ failure performance, however, ego-depletion effect was more obvious. Experiment 1b (n=65 college athlete students) explored the moderating effect of previous athletes’ successful and failure performance on ego-depletion effect of a cognitive task in a pressurized condition. The results showed opposite direction from the experiment 1 a, i.e., after watching other athletes’successful performance, ego-depletion effect was significant. While after watching other athletes’ failure performance, the ego-depletion effect was not significant. Experiment 2a (n=61 college athlete students) explored the moderating effect of previous athletes’ successful and failure performance on ego-depletion effect of a motor task in a no pressure condition. Experiment 2b (n=70 college athlete students) explored the moderating effect of previous athletes’successful and failure performance on ego-depletion effect of a motor task in a pressurized condition. The results of experiment 2a and experiment 2b all showed no interaction of ego-depletion and success (failure) information in motor task. There ere no moderating effect of previous athletes’ successful and failure performance on ego-depletion effect of a motor task in a no pressure condition and a pressurized condition.In the training etc low pressure situations, concerning for others’ success information is helpful to control the ego-depletion effect. In the game etc high pressure situations, concerning for others’success information is not helpful to control the ego-depletion effect, concerning for others’failure information is helpful to control the ego-depletion effect. These findings also indicate that the moderating effect of others’ success (failure) information on ego-depletion effect is more complex. The moderating effect of others’success (failure) information depends on the pressure situation (pressure and no pressure), and also depends on the property of task (cognitive task and motor task).