After Depletion: The Replenishment of the Self's Regulatory Resources

Abstract

Two experiments investigated how people replenish the self's limited regulatory resource after it is depleted by self-control exertion. Specifically, in Experiment 1, when depleted participants received a 10-minute period between regulatory tasks, their subsequent performance equaled non-depleted participants. In Experiment 2, inducing participants to relax between self-regulation tasks reduced the typical depletion effects. Thus, these findings suggest that replenishment of the self's depleted resources occurs given the occurrence of favorable conditions.

Keywords:

• Self-regulation
• Depletion
• Resources

Notes

1. Across both experiments, analysis of gender on persistence indicated no effects and is therefore not discussed further.

2. We also analyzed the data without the participants who worked on the task for the full 20 minutes and it made no substantive changes to the reported results.

3. Following Segerstrom and Nes' (2007, p. 275) description, less parasympathetic input should result in less pronounced acceleration and deceleration and less variable intervals between heart beats, that is, lower HRV.