Improving Self-control by Practicing Logical Reasoning

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that practicing logical reasoning can improve self-control. In an experimental training study (N = 49 undergraduates), for one week participants engaged in daily mental exercises with or without the requirement to practice logical reasoning. Participants in the logic group showed improvements in self-control, as revealed by anagram performance after a depleting self-control task. The benefits of the intervention were short-lived; participants in the two groups performed similarly just one week after the intervention had ended. We discuss the findings with respect to the strength model of self-control and consider possible benefits of regular cognitive challenges in education.

Keywords::

• Ego depletion
• Intervention
• Reasoning
• Self-control
• Self-regulation

Notes

^1. The pre-test, post-test, and follow-up sessions also included self-report measures on mood and motivation. These measures did not reveal significant differences between the intervention conditions.

^2. We corrected for skewness in all anagram performance measures by applying square root transformations (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). For the math performance measures no adjustments to normal distribution were required. Decisions for correction were based on Q-Q plots and histograms.

^3. Van Breukelen (2006) demonstrated that ANCOVA and ANOVA of change from baseline are unbiased in terms of detecting treatment effects; however, ANCOVA has more statistical power in randomized samples. Therefore, we made the a priori decision to apply ANCOVA to test the effect of practicing logical reasoning. When repeating the analysis with ANOVA of change, we found a pattern of results widely in line with the ANCOVA results. Most important, the interaction between treatment (logic condition versus no logic condition) and time of measure (pre-test versus post-test versus follow-up) predicted anagram performance, p = .02, but did not predict math performance, p = .71.