Counteraction And Prevention Effect Of Positive Emotion On Ego-depletion

There is a lot of research at home and abroad have proved that self-control will cause ego-depletion which is the subsequent operating performance decline. Counteracting ego-depletion has raised a hot wave of research in nowadays. Researchers are trying to find different ways to prevent the ego-depletion, or to counteract the resource compensation after the ego-depletion, to better complete the subsequent task. In recent years, researchers, in psychological field, train of thought with the rise of positive psychology, from the focus on individual behavior and negative emotion to use the perspective of positive psychology to solve problems. From this perspective, in this study, we aimed to discuss the mechanism of positive emotion to affect the ego-depletion by 2studys and 4 experiments, and we hope we can apply these results into the sport situation.In study 1, there are 3 consecutive experiments to induce different emotion of individual before the self-control, after the self-control, and self-control behavior before and after. Assuming that to compare the neutral emotion, positive emotion compensates or extends the resources after ego-depletion, and retards the negative impact of ego depletion. The results showed that, compared with neutral emotion, positive emotion, after self-control task, counteracts ego depletion. Before self-control task, positive emotion expands individual resources, and prevents the ego depletion of athletes. Before and after self-control task, the stack effect of inducing positive emotion in two times plays a role for easing the ego depletion, but there is not better effect than once.In study 2, according to the experimental program of study 1, we aimed to discuss that positive emotion prevents the ego depletion of athletes by measuring in sport field. In order to close to the sport situation, we change some procedures: participant are active athletes; self-control task change to "don’t think of the coach" from "don’t think of the white bear"; detective task is estimates cycling time by bike. It hypotheses that athletes who estimates shorter time whose ego-depletion is less. The results showed that, athletes who watched the positive mood video estimates time shorter. It proved that positive emotions can play the role of prevention of ego depletion once again.On this basis, this study got the following conclusions:1) positive emotion counteracts ego depletion; 2) positive emotion extends self -resources, and can prevent ego depletion; 3) there was no significant difference in counteraction, prevention and the superposition effect; 4) in sport field, positive emotion can prevent ego-depletion, which is, after inducing positive emotion, athletes can have enough resources and energy to complete the following self-control tasks.5) it’s a reasonable way to control ego-depletion by comprehensive discussing strength model of self-control and the broaden-and-build theory.