Mark Muraven

University at Albany, State University of New York | UAlbany

We conducted a preregistered multi-laboratory project (k = 36; N = 3531) to assess the size and robustness of ego depletion effects using a novel replication method, termed the paradigmatic replication approach. Laboratories implemented one of two procedures that intended to manipulate self control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of...

Background: Understanding the role that medical use of prescription drugs plays in nonmedical use of prescription drugs can inform prevention efforts. In order to understand fully the potential risk that medical use of prescription drugs conveys for nonmedical use of prescription drugs, the current study explored (a) the simultaneous associations b...

Intimate relationship functioning depends upon the ability to accommodate one's partner and to inhibit retaliatory and aggressive impulses when disagreements arise. However, accommodation and inhibition may be difficult when self‐control strength is weak or depleted by prior exertion of self‐control. The present study considered whether state self‐...

The effects of social exclusion on prosocial and antisocial behaviors are unclear. Although some studies suggest that exclusion increases prosocial behavior, others indicate exclusion decreases prosocial behavior and may even lead to antisocial aggression. Based on these mixed findings, we propose that when exclusion leads to feeling disliked, sadn...

Self-control all too often fails. Despite people’s best intentions and considerable negative outcomes, people often nd themselves at the losing end of resisting temptation, combating urges, and changing their behavior. One reason for these failures may be that exerting self-control depletes a limited resource (ego depletion) that is necessary for t...

Because social modeling relates to exercise behavior, the Social Modeling of Exercise Inventory (SMExI) was developed to assess this form of social influence. In Study 1a, participants (n = 294) were asked how others help them to exercise regularly. Based on these responses, Study 1b (n = 246) and Study 1c (n = 146) examined the created scale's fac...

The brain’s reliance on glucose as a primary fuel source is well established, but psychological models of cognitive processing that take energy supply into account remain uncommon. One exception is research on self-control depletion, where debate continues over a limited-resource model. This model argues that a transient reduction in self-control a...

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to increase qualitative understanding of student motives for and consequences associated with nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Participants: Sixty-one students participated in eight focus groups between April and November 2013. Methods: Students described prescription drugs commonly used for...

Research on human self-regulation has shown that people hold many goals simultaneously and have complex self-regulation mechanisms to deal with this goal conflict. Artificial autonomous systems may also need to find ways to cope with conflicting goals. Indeed, the intricate interplay among different goals may be critical to the design as well as lo...

The present study of college students investigated (a) the prevalence of nonmedical use of three classes of prescription drugs (stimulants, anxiolytics/sedatives, analgesics), (b) the prevalence of negative sexual events (NSE) associated with any nonmedical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD), and (c) a set of correlates of NSE. The specific NSE were...

There is a growing focus on how to design safe artificial intelligent (AI) agents. As systems become more complex, poorly specified goals or control mechanisms may cause AI agents to engage in unwanted and harmful outcomes. Thus it is necessary to design AI agents that follow initial programming intentions as the program grows in complexity. How to...

Religious people differ in how punishing or forgiving they see their Gods. Such different beliefs may have distinct consequences in encouraging people to act in normative ways. Though a number of priming studies have shown a positive causal relationship between religion and normative behavior, few have primed different aspects of religion, and none...

A new theory is proposed to explain why exerting self-control leads to subsequent decline in self-control performance. This model of hedonic sampling builds on previous motivational accounts of depletion. In particular, it was hypothesized that exerting self-control requires individuals to imagine alternative futures where they did not exert self-c...

Logically, responding aggressively to rejection is maladaptive because one is unlikely to seek a relationship with an aggressor. We predict that when concealed, the illogical aggressive response to rejection is more likely, whereas when rejected individuals’ aggressive responses are perceived as public, aggressive acts may be reduced. Participants...

In three studies, ego-depleted participants reported the same level of affective/cognitive concern for others as control participants, but behaved less prosocially. In Study 1, participants had to sustain cooperation to increase the joint payout to themselves and another player. In Study 2, participants had to restrict their use of a shared resourc...

In this investigation, we experimentally test the interaction of ego-depletion (low state self-control), consequences, and decision-making time on aggressive responses to an insult from a confederate. The results indicate that ego-depleted participants respond more quickly and aggressively to an insult from a confederate. However, when a 30- second...

Exertion of self-control requires reliance on ego resources. Impaired performance typically results once those resources have been depleted by previous use. Yet the mechanism behind the depletion processes is little understood. Beliefs, motivation, and physiological changes have been implicated, yet the source behind these remains unknown. We propo...

Social rejection can lead to feeling disliked and disrespected. From research on the culture of honor and perception of procedural justice, we predicted that feeling disrespected should be a more potent predictor of retaliatory aggression than feeling disliked. In four experiments, using correlational measures and experimental manipulations of disl...

Inhibiting inappropriate expressions of emotion is one function of self-control. Although such regulation may facilitate interpersonal interactions, individuals may inappropriately extend this emotional inhibition to other situations where emotional regulation is not needed. The current research examined the effects of individual differences in sel...

Individuals who have failed at self‐control are often the targets of negative social judgments. We suggest that in some circumstances, individual differences in lay theories regarding self‐control may help account for these reactions. Specifically, people may believe that the ability to exert self‐control is either a fixed quantity (entity theory)...

We propose that egotism about one's abilities may be related to good self-regulation and a lack of self-control may reduce estimations of aptitudes. Self-control depletion should lead to more accurate and therefore less lofty predictions of future performances. In two experiments, self-control depletion was manipulated by having participants either...

Self-control all too often fails. Despite people's best intentions and considerable negative outcomes, people often find themselves at the losing end of resisting temptation, combating urges, and changing their behavior. One reason for these failures may be that exerting self-control depletes a limited resource (ego depletion) that is necessary for...

Following social norms to avoid deviant or socially inappropriate behavior may require self-control. This was tested in two experiments that experimentally manipulated individuals' level of self-control strength. In the first experiment, individuals whose self-control capacity was depleted were more likely to misrepresent how many problems they sol...

It is a common occurrence in daily life to be interrupted prior to completing a task. Such interruptions may have deleterious effects for limited self-resources, especially if they occur just prior to task completion. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. In the first two, participants initially engaged in a card sorting task, and then s...

Some people are adept at using discrete emotion categories (anxious, angry, sad) to capture their felt experience; other people merely communicate how good or bad they feel. We theorized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to self-medicate with alcohol. During a 3-week period, 106 underage social drinkers us...

Recent research has suggested that practicing small acts of self-control can lead to an improvement in self-control performance. Because smoking cessation requires self-control, it was hypothesized that a treatment that builds self-control should help in quitting smoking. A total of 122 smokers either practiced small acts of self-control for 2 week...

Previous research has found that individuals low in trait self-control are more likely to take excessive risks than individuals high in trait self-control. The authors expand on this by examining the causal effects of state fluctuations in self-control on subsequent risk taking. Using the self-control strength model, the authors predicted that depl...

Self-control performance may be improved by the regular practice of small acts of self-control. Ninety-two adults' self-control capacity was assessed using the stop signal paradigm before they started practicing self-control and again at the end of two weeks. Participants who practiced self-control by cutting back on sweets or squeezing a handgrip...

Why someone exerts self-control may influence how depleting a task is. Feeling compelled to exert self-control require more self-control strength than exerting self-control for more autonomous reasons. Across three experiments, individuals whose autonomy was supported while exerting self-control performed better on a subsequent test of self-control...

Autonomously motivated self-control may be less depleting than extrinsically motivated self-control. Participants were asked to not eat cookies and their motivation orientation for resisting that temptation was assessed. Their self-control performance was assessed immediately before and after fighting the temptation. As compared to their baseline p...

Research has suggested that whereas stereotypical attitudes may be automatically activated, the response to these stereotypes can be controlled. Anything that interferes with self-control may result in more biased behavior. The ego strength model hypothesizes that after exerting self-control, subsequent self-control performance will suffer. Hence,...

Exerting self-control appears to deplete a needed resource, which leads to poorer self-control subsequently. However, the amount of depletion may vary, based on how controlling versus autonomy supportive the situation is. In particular, feeling compelled to exert self-control may deplete more strength than having more freedom when exerting self-con...

Previous work has shown that acts of self-regulation appear to deplete a psychological resource, resulting in poorer self-regulation subsequently. Four experiments using assorted manipulations and measures found that positive mood or emotion can counteract ego depletion. After an initial act of self-regulation, participants who watched a comedy vid...

The set of techniques known collectively as real-time data capture (RTDC) is becoming increasingly important in medical research. Based on the collection of data in people's typical environments, RTDC is primarily used with self-reported data, such as medical symptoms and psychological states. Now, its guiding principles and supporting technologies...

Criminological research on self-control focuses mainly on self-control failure. Such research has not, however, investigated the consequences of exercising self-control for the individual doing so. The present study investigates this issue within the framework of both criminological self-control theory and research on self-control depletion from so...

Individuals may be motivated to limit their use of self-control resources, especially when they have depleted some of that resource. Expecting to need self-control strength in the future should heighten the motivation to conserve strength. In 4 experiments, it was found that depleted participants who anticipated exerting self-control in the future...

Being exposed to the sight and smell of an alcoholic beverage and not drinking it should require self-control. On the basis of the self-control strength model (M. Muraven & R. F. Baumeister, 2000), exerting self-control should lead to poorer performance on subsequent self-control tasks. Using a cue exposure paradigm, the authors had 160 social drin...

This article is a summary of a symposium presented at the 2005 Research Society on Alcoholism annual conference organized by Dan J. Neal and chaired by William R. Corbin. Event-level data, wherein each "event" (e.g., day) is captured as its own data point, capture the complex patterns of drinking and other high-risk behaviors in ways that the typic...

The authors examined whether the reciprocal relationship between alcohol consumption and distress unfolded over time in 2 samples of social drinkers. Participants monitored their alcohol intake and their cognitive and emotional responses to that drinking on hand-held computers. On mornings after drinking, those who had violated their self-imposed l...

Predictions made by the self-control strength model were tested in a sample of underage social drinkers using ecological momentary assessment methodology. On days that participants experienced more self-control demands than average, they were more likely to violate their self-imposed drinking limit after controlling for mood and urge to drink. Ther...

The ability to shift attention away from the self may increase self-conscious individuals' vulnerability to negative affective states. Participants' ability to shift their attention away from themselves was assessed by how quickly they could shift attention to an external stimulus when thinking about themselves relative to their reaction time when...

Adult social drinkers used handheld computers to monitor alcohol intake as well as the precursors and consequences of drinking over a 2-week period. The within-person relationship between mood and amount of alcohol consumed was examined, as well as the role of individual differences. When individuals made internal attributions for their greater tha...

In this review of Self and Identity: Personal, Social, and Symbolic, (see record 2002-12838-000 ), the reviewer notes that one of the central themes is the relationship between cognition and identity, and discusses the emergence of an alternative processing metaphor to the dominant serial computer metaphor known as connectionism or parallel distrib...

Past research has found that high sensitivity to punishment is associated with a vulnerability to experience negative emotions (Carver & White, 1994) and lowered self-control (Segarra, Molto, & Torrubia, 2000). Separate lines of research have found that negative emotions may contribute to a loss of self-control (Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 200...

Although mood regulation is ubiquitous and individuals are extremely well practiced at it, they often go about it all wrong. Individuals misregulate their moods. That is the primary point of Robert Thayer's recent Calm Energy: Hew People Regulate Mood With Food and Exercise (see record 2001-18220-000 ). In particular, Thayer contends that moods con...

Research has found that individuals who are lower in self-control strength because of previous self-control exertions perform more poorly on subsequent tests of self-control. The present studies suggest that this effect may be moderated by motivation. In particular, depletion and motivation jointly determine self-control performance. Individuals wh...

Individuals whose self-control strength is depleted through the prior exertion of self-control may consume more alcohol in situations that demand restraint. Male social drinkers either exerted self-control by suppressing their thoughts or did not exert self-control while doing arithmetic. They then sampled beer. Participants expected a driving test...

Individuals whose self-control strength is depleted through the prior exertion of self-control may consume more alcohol in situations that demand restraint. Male social drinkers either exerted self-control by suppressing their thoughts or did not exert self-control while doing arithmetic. They then sampled beer. Participants expected a driving test...

Making choices, responding actively instead of passively, restraining impulses, and other acts of self-control and volition all draw on a common resource that is limited and renewable, akin to strength or energy. After an act of choice or self-control, the self's resources have been expended, producing the condition of ego depletion. In this state,...

The authors review evidence that self-control may consume a limited resource. Exerting self-control may consume self-control strength, reducing the amount of strength available for subsequent self-control efforts. Coping with stress, regulating negative affect, and resisting temptations require self-control, and after such self-control efforts, sub...

This study examined the results of repeated exercises of self-control in relation to self-regulatory strength over time. A sample of 69 U.S. college students spent 2 weeks doing 1 of 3 self-control exercises: monitoring and improving posture, regulating mood, or monitoring and recording eating. Compared with a no-exercise control group, the partici...

People who expect to exert self-control in the future perform more poorly on tests of self-regulation. People appear to have a desire to conserve a limited self-regulatory strength. The motivation to conserve strength may contribute to self-control breakdowns. Previous research has found that subsequent attempts at self-control are worse following...

Choice, active response, self-regulation, and other volition may all draw on a common inner resource. In Experiment 1, people who forced themselves to eat radishes instead of tempting chocolates subsequently quit faster on unsolvable puzzles than people who had not had to exert self-control over eating. In Experiment 2, making a meaningful personal...

If self-regulation conforms to an energy or strength model, then self-control should be impaired by prior exertion. In Study 1, trying to regulate one's emotional response to an upsetting movie was followed by a decrease in physical stamina. In Study 2, suppressing forbidden thoughts led to a subsequent tendency to give up quickly on unsolvable ana...

Adaptation may be the best way to conceptualize the complex, multilateral relationship between individual identity and sociocultural context, because it recognizes the causal importance of culture yet also recognizes individual choice and change. This argument is developed by considering how several historical changes in the sociocultural context (...

Although most interpersonal interactions take place between people who know each other, most self-presentation research has focused on self-presentation to strangers. Five studies showed that self-presentational favorability differed as a function of whether the interaction partner was a friend or a stranger. Studies 1 and 2 found that self-present...

Typescript. Department of Psychology. Thesis (M.A.)--Case Western Reserve University, 1995. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-41).