Understanding and Overcoming Self‐control Depletion

Abstract After people exert self‐control, self‐control performance on subsequent tasks tends to suffer, as if the capacity for self‐control was depleted by the prior exertion. The present paper discusses self‐control depletion and how people may overcome it. We searched the psychology literature and found nearly 40 empirical articles documenting diverse traits and strategies that counteract depletion, thereby facilitating self‐control success. The evidence points to two major strategies for overcoming depletion. The first strategy involves offsetting the high amount of effort required for self‐control (e.g., introducing a brief period of rest). The second involves compensating for the low immediate rewards that most self‐control tasks offer (e.g., providing an additional incentive for exerting self‐control). These strategies can be interpreted neatly within the framework of recent motivational accounts of self‐control depletion. This analysis may inform those aiming to improve self‐control success or simply to understand and anticipate when and why self‐control depletion occurs.