Setbacks in Self-Control: Failing Not Mere Resisting Impairs Subsequent Self-Control

Abstract

Research on ego depletion has often relied on the dual-task setting employing short tasks with low ecological validity. The comparatively few studies on ego depletion in daily life so far used diverging operationalization and yielded ambiguous results. We argue that fundamental research on short-term self-control limitations can benefit from research on the limit violation effect, which highlights the danger to self-control when setbacks are attributed to internal causes. To test the role of setbacks and compare different ego depletion operationalizations in daily life, we used data from two ambulatory assessment studies (N = 125 and 205). No consistent ego depletion effects were observed in Study 1; instead, momentary self-control success was only impaired after setbacks (prior self-control efforts failed). The role of prior setbacks was replicated in Study 2, highlighting the importance of setbacks in subsequent self-control efforts beyond mere resisting, which should be incorporated in interventions targeting self-control improvements.