Roy Baumeister

The University of Queensland | UQ · School of Psychology

Social psychology studies how situations cause behavior. Situations are partly defined by a matrix of possibilities (including probabilities and contingencies), and so human responses are caused not merely by realities but also by possibilities—even including some possibilities that never materialize. The human mind has complex abilities to recogni...

Social psychology findings have fared poorly in multi-site replication attempts. This article considers and evaluates multiple factors that may contribute to such failures, other than the "crisis" assumption that most of the field's published research is so badly flawed that it should be dismissed wholesale. Low engagement by participants may reduc...

Multisite (multilab/many-lab) replications have emerged as a popular way of verifying prior research findings, but their record in social psychology has prompted distrust of the field and a sense of crisis. We review all 36 multisite social-psychology replications (plus three articles reporting multiple ministudies). We start by assuming that both...

Many disturbances of physical, social, and mental health have conditions involving lack of energy, difficulty in making decisions, and low interest or motivation. Laboratory studies of willpower depletion have produced similar states in a temporary fashion. The present review uses extant literature to develop and test three theories about how tempo...

We provide a general overview of how to understand meaning. The term invokes two different concepts. Denotative meaning, as in the meaning of symbols and sentences, is a basis for thinking that forms connections and thereby imposes organization on self and world. Existential meaning is how people understand their lives, which is typically in the fo...

The matrix of maybe can be defined as a way of conceptualizing the future, either imminent or distant, as a set of options, only some of which will come true. The “maybe” is meant to invoke not only the options readily available but also the uncertain nature of their consequences. For example, people may choose a job or a spouse from among several...

We provide a general overview of how to understand meaning. The term invokes two different concepts. Denotative meaning, as in the meaning of symbols and sentences, is a basis for thinking that forms connections and thereby imposes organization on self and world. Existential meaning is how people understand their lives, which is typically in the fo...

The integrative model of effortful control presented in a previous article aimed to specify the neurophysiological bases of mental effort. This model assumes that effort reflects three different inter-related aspects of the same adaptive function. First, a mechanism anchored in the salience network that makes decisions about the effort that should...

Self-protection can have psychological and behavioral implications. We contrast them with the implications of a self-enhancement strategy. Both self-enhancement and self-protection have costs and benefits as survival strategies, and we identify some of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral tradeoffs associated with the differential preferences f...

Reviewing the literature of the past two decades, Orth and Robins (2022) conclude that high self-esteem yields reliable benefits. In this commentary, we caution that for objective outcome measures, these effects are variable- and domain-dependent. The allure of high self-esteem remains largely a matter of mind and memory, not behavior. (PsycInfo Da...

Objectives Past work has found that optimism reduces a person’s responsiveness to pain, but the effects of pessimism are not clear. Therefore, we gave pessimistic forecasts of participants’ future social life and measured changes in their pain responsiveness. In particular, some participants were told that they would end up alone in life. Methods...

The matrix of maybe can be defined as a way of conceptualizing the future, either imminent or distant, as a set of options, only some of which will come true. The “maybe” is meant to invoke not only the options readily available but also the uncertain nature of their consequences. For example, people may choose a job or a spouse from among several...

The conscious deliberation over multiple possibilities and the mental simulation of possible future outcomes enable individuals to make better choices. Humans likely evolved the ability to deliberate about their choices and simulate the possible outcomes of different actions. This ability is also likely to have adaptive value for human decision-mak...

Determinism is the theory that all events in the universe are completely caused by prior events, such that every occurrence was inevitable from the start of the universe, ranging from the intricate blast of every supernova, to the precise path each leaf travels as it flutters to the ground, to the very words we are writing in this encyclopedia entr...

High trait self-control is generally depicted as favorable. We investigated whether this holds for social perception. Using vignettes, we tested whether a person with high self-control is 1) preferred as a partner for all or only certain social situations, 2) perceived as less likeable than a person with low self-control, 3) liked more if the perso...

The current research tested the effects of active choice on memory (i.e., the self-choice effect). Across 14 experiments (N = 1100) we found that memory for choice alternatives was improved by choosing versus being assigned information to remember. A subset of 3 experiments found a bigger self-choice effect for more difficult choices. And a subset...

Self-control is important, but people may only be motivated to improve their self-control under specific conditions. The present study tests the factors that affect the desire for self-control (DSC), expecting that it would be affected by stable level of self-control (deficiency) and by concerns about meeting current goals (necessity). Four studies...

Previous research indicates that the depletion of self-regulatory resources can promote unethical behavior that benefits the self. Extending this literature, we focus on norm-transgressing behavior that is intended to primarily benefit others. In particular, we predicted a differing effect of self-regulatory resource depletion on dishonesty that be...

Informed by moral typecasting theory, we predicted a gender bias in harm evaluation, such that women are more easily categorized as victims and men as perpetrators. Study 1 participants assumed a harmed target was female (versus male), but especially when labeled ‘victim’. Study 2 participants perceived animated shapes perpetuating harm as male and...

Three studies demonstrated that situational uncertainty impairs executive function on subsequent unrelated tasks. Participants were randomly assigned to either uncertain situations (not knowing whether they would have to give a speech later, Studies 1-2; uncertain about how to complete a task, Study 3) or control conditions. Uncertainty caused poor...

Abundant evidence suggests that people exert self-control as if the exertions consumed a limited energy resource, akin to the folk notion of willpower. After exerting self-control, subsequent efforts at self-control are often relatively feeble and unsuccessful. The state of low willpower is called ego depletion. Studies on ego depletion have shown...

It has long been argued that people become attached to objects because objects help people to define, reflect, and communicate the self. In this article we consider whether objects not only help to “know thyself” but also to “fuel thyself”. In other words, whether objects can contribute to self-regulation. We review past research to consider whethe...

Social exclusion reduces happiness and well-being partly by creating a generalized expectation of future rejection and lack of belonging. An experiment (N = 709) using a guided imagination task found that social exclusion led to reduced feelings of happiness. The effect was mediated by future expectations, as participants who imagined a vivid exclu...

Surgical treatment of lymphedema with liposuction typically requires subsequent compression therapy. Here we describe an approach where secondary arm lymphedemas are initially treated by autologous lymphatic grafting to bypass the axilla and restore lymphatic flow. In the presence of excess adipose tissue, liposuction is then performed in a second...

Across six experiments (N = 1304), people dealt with failure by dismissing the value of future goals. Participants were randomly assigned to receive good or poor feedback on a practice trial of a cognitive test (Studies 1–3, 5–6) or their academic performance (Study 4). Those who received poor (vs. good) feedback predicted that they would feel less...

Tomasello argues that humans’ sense of moral obligation emerges early in development, relies on a shared “we,” and serves as the foundation of cooperation. This perspective complements our theoretical view of the human self as information agent . The shared “we” promotes not only proximal cooperative goals but also distal ones via the construction...

Time is among the most important yet mysterious aspects of experience. We investigated everyday mental time travel, especially into the future. Two community samples, contacted at random points for three (Study 1; 6,686 reports) and 14 days (Study 2; 2,361 reports), reported on their most recent thought. Both studies found that thoughts about the p...

Time is among the most important yet mysterious aspects of experience. We investigated everyday mental time travel, especially into the future. Two community samples, contacted at random points for 3 (Study 1; 6,686 reports) and 14 days (Study 2; 2,361 reports), reported on their most recent thought. Both studies found that thoughts about the prese...

In three studies (n = 427), participants wrote and answered questions about autobiographical episodes involving helping behavior from the perspective of the helper vs. the recipient. Both helpers and recipients reported that the benefits of help outweighed the costs (i.e., the help was non-zero-sum). Helpers underestimated the degree to which recip...

Future optimism is a widespread phenomenon, often attributed to the psychology of intuition. However, causal evidence for this explanation is lacking, and sometimes cautious realism is found. One resolution is that thoughts about the future have two steps: A first step imagining the desired outcome, and then a sobering reflection on how to get ther...

This article presents an integrative model of effortful control, a resource-limited top-down control mechanism involved in mental tasks and physical exercises. Based on recent findings in the fields of neuroscience, social psychology and cognitive psychology, this model posits the intrinsic costs related to a weakening of the connectivity of neural...

Sex is critical to marriage. Yet, there are several reasons to expect spouses to experience declines in the desire for sex over time, and the rates of any declines in sexual desire may differ for men and women. We used two multi-wave, longitudinal studies to test whether male and female members of newlywed couples experienced different rates of cha...

We conducted a survey about the 2014 FIFA World Cup that measured attitudes about FIFA, players, and officials in 18 languages with 4600 respondents from 29 countries. Sixty percent of respondents perceived FIFA officials as being dishonest, and people from countries with less institutional corruption and stronger rule of law perceived FIFA officia...

Does belief in free will free or freeze decision-making? The existentialist hypothesis, rooted in views of free will as a source of anguish and hesitation, would predict that free will impedes decisions by increasing indecisiveness. In contrast, the evolutionary hypothesis, rooted in views of free will as a driver of effective social functioning, w...

When, if ever, would a person want to be held responsible for his or her choices? Across four studies (N = 915), people favored more extreme rewards and punishments for their future than their past actions. This included thinking that they should receive more blame and punishment for future misdeeds than for past ones, and more credit and reward fo...

Three studies examined effects of social exclusion on reactions to receiving an unexpected gift. Trait Psychological Entitlement was also measured as a potential moderator in all studies. In Study 1, participants wrote about a time they felt rejected, accepted, or something neutral. Compared to the control condition, social exclusion increased self...

When an environment is uncertain, humans and other animals benefit from preparing for and attempting to predict potential outcomes. People respond to uncertainty both by conserving mental energy on tasks unrelated to the source of the uncertainty and by increasing their attentiveness to information related to the uncertainty. This mental hoarding a...

Recent scholarship has challenged the long-held assumption in the social sciences that Conservatives are more biased than Liberals, contending that predominantly liberal social scientists overlooked liberal bias. Here, we demonstrate that Liberals are prone to bias about relatively low-status groups (e.g. Blacks, women), and specifically are biased...

For years, experimental philosophers have attempted to discern whether laypeople find free will compatible with a scientifically deterministic understanding of the universe, yet no consensus has emerged. The present work provides one potential explanation for these discrepant findings: People are strongly motivated to preserve free will and moral r...

Recent scholarship has challenged the long-held assumption in the social sciences that Conservatives are more biased than Liberals, yet little work deliberately explores domains of liberal bias. Here, we demonstrate that Liberals are particularly prone to bias about victims’ groups (e.g. Blacks, women) and identify a set of beliefs that consistentl...

In this essay, we aim to counter and qualify the epiphenomenalist challenge proposed in this special issue on the grounds of empirical and theoretical arguments. The current body of scientific knowledge strongly indicates that conscious thought is a necessary condition for many human behaviors, and therefore, consciousness qualifies as a cause of t...

Sometimes even dieters with the best self-control overindulge. Uncertain situations may undermine the self-control of even well-controlled eaters. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that uncertainty increases unhealthy snacking. Participants were either told that they would be giving a speech, that they would be listening to a speech, o...

How do people evaluate moral actions, by referencing objective rules or by appealing to subjective, descriptive norms of behavior? Five studies examined whether and how people incorporate subjective, descriptive norms of behavior into their moral evaluations and mental state inferences of an agent's actions. We used experimental norm manipulations...

The self is a structured but dynamic system that comprises the perceptions and evaluations of one’s own personal features as well as the processes and mechanisms operating with these items.

Experience sampling study of self-control processes in everyday life, with giant sample

This article was published at Science Trends, and is freely available here: https://sciencetrends.com/believing-addiction-reduces-free-will-may-hamper-efforts-to-quit/ It describes experiments we published at Addictive Behaviors Reports, here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853217300019

Planning is a future-directed thought process that is highly beneficial, but it requires mental effort. Informed by the strength model of self-regulation, four studies (N = 546) tested the hypothesis that willingness to plan is linked to good self-control. A correlational study (N = 201) found that people high in trait self-control had done more pl...

Research has shown that people ascribe more responsibility to morally bad actions than both morally good and neutral ones, suggesting that people do not attribute responsibility to morally good actions. The present work demonstrates that this is not so: People ascribe more free will to morally good than neutral actions (Studies 1a-1b, Mini Meta). S...

Theory and research have both characterized self-control as a vital human strength. Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s (2004) Self-Control Scale (SCS) is a 36-item self-report questionnaire that assess individual differences in multiple aspects of self-control. The scale is now considered the preeminent measure of self-control in social and psycholog...

Researchers have suggested that women compete with same-sex peers using indirect social tactics. However, the specific predictors and mechanisms of this form of female intrasexual competition are less well understood. We propose that one mechanism by which women harm rivals’ social opportunities is through selectively transmitting reputation-releva...

The corrosive effects of power have been noted for centuries, but the self-related changes responsible for those effects have remained somewhat elusive. Narcissists tend to rise to-and abuse-positions of power, so we considered the possibility that positions of power may corrupt because they inflate narcissism. Two pathways were considered: Powerho...

Thinking about the future highlights the constructive nature of consciousness, as opposed to merely representing what is there — because the future is not yet available to be seen. We elaborate this point to emphasize how consciousness deals in alternative possibilities, and indeed preconscious interpretation confers meaning by recognizing these al...

Research has shown that people ascribe more responsibility to morally bad actions than both morally good and neutral ones, suggesting that people do not attribute responsibility to morally good actions. The present work demonstrates that this is not so: People ascribe more free will to morally good than neutral actions (Studies 1a-1b, Mini Meta). S...

Open Access Link until May 5, 2018 https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Wjtx3lcz3lVmA Four experiments supported the hypothesis that ordinary people understand free will as meaning unconstrained choice, not having a soul. People consistently rated free will as being high unless reduced by internal constraints (i.e., things that impaired people's mental...

Our 2003 article clashed with conventional wisdom by concluding that high self-esteem has only a couple of benefits, notably high initiative (based on trusting one’s own judgment) and feeling good. Its high citation rate reflects not only the novel conclusions but also widespread interest in self-esteem both among researchers and in the broader soc...

The strength model of self-regulation uses a muscle analogy to explain patterns of ego depletion, conservation of willpower, and improved performance after frequent exercise. Our 2007 overview of the literature has been well cited, presumably because of the phenomenon’s importance to theories of selfhood and a wide assortment of applied contexts, i...

This is a stand-alone reflection on meaning written by two scholars who recently edited a special issue on that topic. The first of four organizing questions concerns the nature of meaning. The meaning of signs (e.g., words) consists of nonphysical connection (e.g., symbolism) and potential organization. Meanwhile, existential meaning (meaning of l...

Self-control is not just a puritanical virtue. It is a key psychological trait that breeds success at work and play—and in overcoming life's hardships

Thinking about the future highlights the constructive nature of consciousness, as opposed to merely representing what is there — because the future is not yet available to be seen. We elaborate this point to emphasize how consciousness deals in alternative possibilities, and indeed preconscious interpretation confers meaning by recognizing these al...

When, if ever, would a person want to be held responsible for his or her choices? Across four studies (N = 915), people assigned more moral responsibility to themselves for their future than their past actions. This included thinking that they should receive more blame and punishment for future misdeeds than for past ones, and more credit and rewar...

If initial failure makes future success seem out of reach, do people think that such success would bring them more or less happiness than if initial performance had gone well? Across five experiments (N=690), participants were randomly assigned to receive good or poor feedback on a practice trial of a cognitive test (Studies 1-4) and their academic...

People have the ability to make important choices in their lives, but deliberating about these choices can have costs. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that writing about conflicted personal goals and values (conflict condition) would impair self-control on an unrelated subsequent task as compared to writing about clear persona...

Four studies tested the hypotheses that (1) romantic partners function as hard-to-fake signals of status and (2) men are concerned about signaling their status to both other men and to other women. In study 1, participants rated the status of an individual (gender remained neutral) who was described as attending a party with either a high-quality g...

Addiction is a promising phenomenon for gaining insight into how motivation (wanting and liking) interacts with control of behavior. Some have proposed that addiction primarily undermines action control, such as by weakening free will or overwhelming its capabilities with strong desires. As that view is at odds with empirical evidence, we develop a...

Predicated on the notion that people’s survival depends greatly on participation in cooperative society, and that reputation damage may preclude such participation, four studies with diverse methods tested the hypothesis that people would make substantial sacrifices to protect their reputations. A “big data” study found that maintaining a moral rep...

Three studies supported the hypothesis that people can become mentally and physically passive when resources are depleted by prior acts of self-control. Feeling depleted and recent self-regulatory exertion, were associated with preferences for passive behaviors like resting and watching TV. Participants who had to maintain attention in the face of...

Sexual economics theory analyzes the onset of heterosexual sex as a marketplace deal in which the woman is the seller and the man is the buyer, with the price paid in nonsexual resources. We extend that theory to analyze same-gender contests in that marketplace, and to elaborate the idea that what the woman sells is not just sex but exclusive acces...

This chapter addresses the controversial question of whether happy minds gain happiness by cultivating positive illusions, that is, views of self that exaggerate one’s good qualities and degree of control over life and that involve unrealistically optimistic outlooks. Much evidence indicates that positive illusions contribute to well-being, but the...

Objective: Previous work has linked high levels of belongingness needs to low well-being, suggesting that high desire for social con