Self-Affirmation and Self-Control

Affirming Core Values Counteracts Ego Depletion

Schmeichel, Brandon J.
Vohs, Kathleen D.

¹Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University
²Marketing Department, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

Kathleen Vohs thanks McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research funding. Thank you to Anne Bradbury, Crystal Cullen, Olivia Gambale, Allision Greeson, Nicole Hover, Cathy Laterza, Stephanie Newsome, Michael Nunziato, Michael Pyle, and Megan Schwartz for helping to conduct these experiments and to Roy Baumeister for his comments on earlier versions of this work.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Brandon J. Schmeichel, ment of Psychology, A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4235. E-mail: [email protected]

Received April 24, 2008; Revision received October 5, 2008; Accepted October 25, 2008

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(4):p 770-782, April 2009. | DOI: 10.1037/a0014635

Research has established that acts of self-control deplete a resource required for subsequent self-control tasks. The present investigation revealed that a psychological intervention—self-affirmation—facilitates self-control when the resource has been depleted. Experiments 1 and 2 found beneficial effects of self-affirmation on self-control in a depleted state. Experiments 3 and 4 suggested that self-affirmation improves self-control by promoting higher levels (vs. lower levels) of mental construal. Self-affirmation therefore holds promise as a mental strategy that reduces the likelihood of self-control failure.