The Moderation Effects And Underlying Mechanisms Of Fantasy Realization Strategies On Ego Depletion

Self-control refers to the ability to resist temptations or desires in the service of overarching long-term goals.Good self-control is beneficial to achieve goals.However,an initial exertion of self-control can deplete some of these resources,rendering the individual in a state of reduced resources of ego depletion.Ego depletion is not conducive to our life.It is it is absolutely essential to examine how to overcome ego depletion.This research intends to use mental contrasting and reverse contrasting to explore whether they can overcome ego depletion.Furthermore,we want to explore the inner process if mental contrasting or reverse contrasting can overcome ego depletion.Therefore,we deployed three studiesStudy 1 and study 2 examined whether fantasy realization strategies(mental contrasting and reverse contrasting)moderate the ego-depletion effect.The two studies chose different self-control tasks and different priming paradigms of fantasy realization strategies.The results showed that mental contrasting could moderate the ego-depletion effect,but reverse contrasting failed to moderate the ego-depletion effect.Study 3 was aimed to explore the mechanisms of the impact of fantasy realization strategies on the ego-depletion effect.The results showed that priming the mental contrasting could activate approach motivation.Then we made the further analysis,which showed that approach motivation is not the mediator factor.On the other hand,participants in reverse contrasting group did not show any motivation tendency.The result was same as the control group.We provided evidence that mental contrasting can moderate the effect of ego depletion,and mental contrasting could activate approach motivation.Yet reverse contrasting like the control group failed to moderate the ego-depletion effect,and also failed to activate any motivation.These results are consistent with the strength model of self-control.Future study should use more accurate measures and other potential factors to explore the mechanisms of the moderation effect.