The Counteraction Of Positive Affect On Ego Depletion

The Strength Model of Self-control suggests that the failure of self-control is mainly due to ego depletion.Some studies have suggested that ego depletion can be recovered by rest,sleep and other methods.However,whether positive affect can play a role of counteraction on ego depletion has not reached a consensus conclusion.In addition,as a classic depletion task which can generate maximum depletion effect,e-crossing task lacks its complete localization version in domestic.In addition,the elderly was ignored in present studies on ego depletion,resulting in the lack of evidence from the perspective of life-span.To solve the above problems,the study took young people and the elderly as participants randomly.The study included two parts.The first study developed the Chinese version of e-crossing task and tested the depletion effect of it on young people and the elderly.The second study took the task developed in first study as depletion task and the Stroop task as detection task to explore the counteraction of positive affect on ego depletion and the differences between young people and the elderly.The results are as follows:(1)The Chinese version of e-crossing task performed well on depletion.For both young group and elderly group,compared with the participants under no depletion,the participants under depletion need longer time to complete the task with a lower correct rate and also reported more difficulty and effort about the task.(2)The depletion effect of the Chinese version of e-crossing task was consistent in different ages,no significant difference appeared in the amount of ego depletion effect between the young group and the elderly group in the task.(3)Positive affect counteracted ego depletion.Under depletion,for both young group and elderly group,participants with positive affect significantly performed better in Stroop task than those who were affected by neutral emotions.(4)The counteraction of positive affect on ego depletion differed with age.Positive affect counteracted more ego depletion on elderly participants than young participants.