Moderators

Recent research has found several moderators of self-control strength. In particular, motivation appears to play a key role in whether depleted individuals will perform more poorly on self-control tasks. When given sufficient motivation, depleted individuals and non-depleted individuals perform equally well on measures of self-control. Only when motivation is low do depleted individuals perform worse on tests of self-control.

In addition, when they expect to exert self-control in the future, depleted individuals perform much more poorly than non-depleted individuals on tests of self-control. This suggests that depleted individuals appear to be highly motivated to conserve self-control strength. This conservation may account for their poorer self-control performance.  Individuals factor in future demands on their strength, as well as they currently level of resources when exerting self-control.

Exerting self-control for intrinsic reasons also appears to be less depleting than exerting self-control for extrinsic reasons. When given controlling reasons to exert self-control or report feeling less intrinsically motivated, participants performed more poorly on subsequent measure of self-control.