A Cognitive Control Perspective of Self-Control Strength and Its Depletion

The multiple systems model of angry rumination

Angry rumination is perseverative thinking about a personally meaningful anger-inducing event and is a risk factor for aggression. This article presents a new model for understanding angry rumination across five levels of analysis: cognitive, neurobiological, affective, executive control, and behavioral. The type of rumination that occurs at the cognitive level moderates affective responding and neurobiological activation, which influences executive control and aggression. Angry rumination recruits brain regions implicated in cognitive control, emotion regulation, negative affect, physiological arousal, social cognition, and self-reflection on emotional states. Moreover, angry rumination temporarily reduces self-control, which can increase aggression. The article suggests a functional account of angry rumination, identifies gaps in our knowledge, and proposes future research directions based on hypotheses derived from the model.

What Is Ego Depletion? Toward a Mechanistic Revision of the Resource Model of Self-Control

According to the resource model of self-control, overriding one’s predominant response tendencies consumes and temporarily depletes a limited inner resource. Over 100 experiments have lent support to this model of ego depletion by observing that acts of self-control at Time 1 reduce performance on subsequent, seemingly unrelated self-control tasks at Time 2. The time is now ripe, therefore, not only to broaden the scope of the model but to start gaining a precise, mechanistic account of it. Accordingly, in the current article, the authors probe the particular cognitive, affective, and motivational mechanics of self-control and its depletion, asking, “What is ego depletion?” This study proposes a process model of depletion, suggesting that exerting self-control at Time 1 causes temporary shifts in both motivation and attention that undermine self-control at Time 2. The article highlights evidence in support of this model but also highlights where evidence is lacking, thus providing a blueprint for future research. Though the process model of depletion may sacrifice the elegance of the resource metaphor, it paints a more precise picture of ego depletion and suggests several nuanced predictions for future research.

Lying and executive control: an experimental investigation using ego depletion and goal neglect

This study investigated whether lying requires executive control using a reaction-time based lie test. We hypothesized that (1) goal neglect induced by a long response-stimulus interval (RSI; 5-8s) would make lying harder relative to a short RSI (.2 s) that promoted attentional focus, and (2) participants whose executive control resources were depleted by an initial executive control task would experience more difficulty to lie than control participants who performed a task that required little executive control. Across two experiments, the ego depletion manipulation did not reliably affect lying. Both experiments revealed that the cognitive cost associated with lying was larger for the long compared to the short RSI. This finding supports the idea that lying requires more executive control than truth telling. The manipulation of RSI may provide a simple, yet effective means to improve lie detection accuracy.

Toward a cognitive view of trait mindfulness: distinct cognitive skills predict its observing and nonreactivity facets

Dispositional variations in mindfulness and its facets have garnered considerable recent interest in the clinical and personality literatures. Theoretically, high mindful individuals have been characterized as more attuned to momentary sensations and perceptions and/or better able to execute behavior in a controlled manner, yet data of this relatively cognitive type have not been reported. In addition, perceptual attunement and executive control are distinct skills that may underlie, or at least correlate with, distinct facets of mindfulness. In 3 studies involving college students (N = 297), support for the latter idea was found. Individuals high in the observing (but not nonreactivity) facet of mindfulness demonstrated superior perceptual abilities in visual working memory (Study 1) and temporal order (Study 2) tasks. On the other hand, individuals high in the nonreactivity (but not observing) facet of mindfulness exhibited greater cognitive control flexibility (Study 3). Implications for understanding the cognitive basis of mindfulness facets are discussed.

Driven, distracted, or both? A performance-based ex-Gaussian analysis of individual differences in anxiety

Since the inception of the empirical study of personality, and even before it, individual differences in anxiety and distress have been viewed as key predictors of behavioral performance. Yet such literatures have always entertained 2 perspectives, one contending that anxious individuals are "driven" and the other contending that anxious individuals are "distracted." The present 3 studies (total N=289) sought to reconcile such discrepant views according to an ex-Gaussian parsing of reaction time performance tendencies in basic cognitive tasks. As hypothesized, a particular pattern marked by faster responding on the preponderance of trials (in terms of the ex-Gaussian μ parameter) in combination with slower responding on other trials (in terms of the ex-Gaussian τ parameter) was predictive of higher levels of anxiety. Implications for understanding neuroticism, distress, the anxiety-performance interface, and cognitive models of personality processes are discussed.

Cognitive-emotional dysfunction among noisy minds: predictions from individual differences in reaction time variability

Mental noise can be defined as less reliable information processing. Individuals with high levels of mental noise are thought to be disadvantaged in cognitive, emotional, and behavioural realms. The present five studies (total N=298) investigated such potential disadvantages among normally functioning college undergraduates. Mental noise was operationalised in terms of the reaction time coefficient of variation (RTCV), a measure of RT variability that corrects for average levels of mental speed. Individuals with higher RTCV exhibited less effective cognitive control (Studies 1 and 5), less controlled behaviour (Study 2), and were more prone to negative emotional experiences (Study 3) and depressive symptoms (Study 4). Study 5 extended these results and found that individuals higher (versus lower) in RTCV were more adversely affected by their attentional lapses in daily life. Results converge on the idea that mental noise is an important individual difference dimension with multiple adverse correlates and consequences.

Regulated and unregulated forms of cortisol reactivity: a dual vulnerability model

OBJECTIVE

To test in a laboratory setting the hypothesis that the most problematic daily outcomes should be particular to individuals displaying higher cortisol reactivity and deficits in executive functioning as assessed in a task-switching paradigm.

METHODS

Thirty-eight volunteers completed a comprehensive assessment protocol. Individual differences in cortisol reactivity were quantified in an initial laboratory session involving a social stress speech task. Subsequently, individual differences in task-switching costs in a cognitive paradigm were assessed in a second session. Participants then reported on four problematic outcomes-error reactivity; worry; core aspects of negative emotionality; and aggression behavior frequency-for 15 consecutive days.

RESULTS

Levels of cortisol reactivity did not predict task-switching costs. Instead, and as hypothesized, individual differences in cortisol reactivity and task-switching costs interacted to predict the problematic daily outcomes. The highest levels of such problematic outcomes were particular to high cortisol reactors also exhibiting greater task-switching costs.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings support the dual vulnerability model proposed and are discussed from temperamental, health risk, and daily outcome perspectives. These findings indicate that cortisol is a risk factor, particularly when combined with deficiencies in task-switching.

Self-Control at High and Low Levels of Mental Construal

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that low-level construals—a known contributor to self-control failure—can improve self-control under some circumstances. In support of this hypothesis, the authors found evidence that low-level construals (relative to high-level construals) improve performance on a measure of response inhibition that requires close attention and responsiveness to the immediate environment—the stop signal task (SST). They also found evidence, consistent with previous research, that high-level construals (relative to low-level construals) improve performance on a modified version of the SST (i.e., the delay SST) that requires both response inhibition and goal maintenance in working memory. These results suggest that, depending on the nature of the task, either low-level construals or high-level construals can enhance self-control.