Understanding the setback effect in everyday self‐regulation

Abstract People experience minor instances of self‐regulation failure, i.e., setbacks. While in itself trivial, a single setback may trigger maladaptive chain cognitions and emotions leading to more failure. In the present article, we investigated (a) whether indeed increases chance subsequent (b) what psychological mechanisms underly this effect. We conducted three studies context eating behaviour, exercising, saving. At T1 assessed participants intentions, self‐efficacy, perceived usefulness self‐regulate response recent (versus an instance success). T2 failure success using retrospective recall. Experiencing increased likelihood decreased chances success. Our results most consistently highlight decrease self‐efficacy as underlying mechanism, therefore promising target for interventions prevent effect from occurring.