Do Demanding Conditions Help or Hurt Self-Regulation?

Although everyday life is often demanding, it remains unclear how demanding conditions impact self-regulation. Some theories suggest that demanding conditions impair self-regulation, by undermining autonomy, interfering with skilled performance and working memory, and depleting energy resources. Other theories, however, suggest that demanding conditions improve self-regulation by mobilizing super-ordinate control processes. The present article integrates both kinds of theories by proposing that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on how people adapt to such conditions. When people are action-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to improved self-regulation. When people are state-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to impaired self-regulation. Consistent with this idea, action versus state orientation strongly moderates the influence of demands on self-regulatory performance. The impact of demanding conditions on self-regulation is thus not fixed, but modifiable by psychological processes. Demanding conditions are pervasive in everyday life. At the workplace, employees need to stay abreast of rapid technological innovations and deal with constant pressures towards increased efficiency and productivity. In educational settings, students must meet high standards of academic excellence, often while performing low-paying jobs to cover high tuitions and while taking care of their family members. Even among friends, there are always emails to be responded to, birthdays to be remembered, meetings to be arranged, favors to be returned, along with countless other duties and obligations. Given that demanding conditions are exceedingly common, it is important to understand how people can most effectively deal with such conditions. Unfortunately, psychological theories offer seemingly contradictory insights into this matter. Some influential theories propose that demanding conditions are likely to undermine self-regulation (Baumeister & Showers, 1986; Beilock, Kulp, Holt, & Carr, 2004; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). However, other theories suggest that demanding conditions lead people to marshal their self-regulatory resources, resulting in enhanced motivation and self-regulation (e.g., Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001; Brehm & Self, 1989; Trope & Fishbach, 2000). These different theories have very different practical implications. If demanding conditions undermine self-regulation, people will be best off by avoiding demanding conditions. By contrast, if demanding conditions facilitate selfregulation, people may be advised to seek out demanding conditions whenever they can. In the present article, we develop an integrative theoretical analysis of how demanding conditions influence self-regulation. In what follows, we begin by taking a closer look at the basic ways in which demanding conditions might help or hurt self-regulation. Next, drawing upon action control theory (Kuhl, 1984, 1994a), we propose that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on people’s mode of adapting to these Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6/4 (2012): 328–346, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00425.x a 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd conditions. When people are action-oriented, demanding conditions are likely to facilitate self-regulation. When people are state-oriented, demanding conditions are likely to impair self-regulation. We then review evidence that action versus state orientation moderates the impact of demands on self-regulation. Finally, we state our main conclusions and consider avenues for future research. Demanding Conditions Can Hurt Self-Regulation We use the terms ‘‘self-regulation’’ and ‘‘demanding conditions’’ broadly in the present context, because we seek to identify broad patterns in the relation between these variables. The term ‘‘self-regulation’’ denotes the psychological capacity that allows people to bring their thoughts, feelings, and actions in line with abstract standards, goals, or values (Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, 2007; Carver & Scheier, 1998). The prototype of selfregulation involves conscious and effortful control of behavior. Nevertheless, our use of the term also subsumes more automatic processes that support goal-directed action (e.g., Förster & Jostmann, forthcoming; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Shah, 2005; Trope & Fishbach, 2000). Likewise, we use the terms ‘‘demanding conditions’’ or ‘‘demands’’ to refer to a broad array of circumstances under which goal-directed behavior becomes difficult. These include cognitive difficulties (e.g., complexity, working memory load), motivational difficulties (e.g., boredom or passivity), implementational difficulties (e.g., delays, competing impulses, or distractions), or any combination of these. What these various conditions have in common is that they involve a shift from behavioral routines towards actions that are guided by explicit intentions and plans. This way of conceiving demanding conditions is grounded in theories of human action control (Ach, 1910; Gruber & Goschke, 2004; Kuhl, 1985). Undermining autonomy A first way in which demanding conditions may impair self-regulation is by undermining people’s autonomy. Demanding conditions often involve activities that are low in intrinsic interest (e.g., doing one’s homework), which are performed to obtain some kind of reward (e.g., money, praise) or long-term benefit (e.g., increased social standing). Proponents of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) have suggested that focusing people on external values and directives may lead people away from self-endorsed values and interests. Demanding conditions may thus undermine autonomous self-regulation. According to self-determination theory, autonomous self-regulation is more adaptive than externally directed self-regulation, because the former requires less inner conflict and inhibition of competing motivational tendencies. Moreover, demanding conditions may keep people from fulfilling intrinsic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which are essential to well-being according to self-determination theory. Many tests of self-determination theory have focused on the effects of monetary rewards on intrinsic motivation (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). Relevant studies have confirmed that monetary rewards often undermine intrinsic motivation, as assessed through self-report and free-choice task engagement. Undermining effects are particularly pronounced when rewards are administered in a way that makes people feel as if they are externally controlled, like pawns. Similar effects have been observed for other demanding conditions like surveillance, competition, and deadlines (Deci & Ryan, 2000). These kinds of demanding conditions have further been shown to lower emotional well-being, creativity, and complex problem solving (for a review, see Deci & Ryan, 2000). Finally, demanding Self-Regulation Under Demanding Conditions 329 a 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6/4 (2012): 328–346, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00425.x conditions (i.e., performance-contingent rewards) lead to poorer performance on self-regulation tasks, such as regulating one’s emotions or overriding habitual responses (Muraven, Rosman, & Gagné, 2007). Overall, there is converging evidence that demanding conditions can undermine autonomous self-regulation (see Ryan & Deci, 2008, for an overview). Choking under pressure A second way in which demanding conditions may impair self-regulation is by promoting ‘‘choking under pressure’’. Choking is a paradoxical phenomenon in which raising the importance of success leads people to perform more poorly than might be expected given their level of skill (Baumeister & Showers, 1986; Beilock & Carr, 2001). Although choking occurs presumably in many performance contexts, some of the most dramatic examples have been observed in high-pressure sports settings, such as penalty kicks in soccer (Dohmen, 2008; Jordet, 2009) or championship games (e.g., Wright, Voyer, Wright, & Roney, 1995). The likelihood of choking increases under conditions of heightened self-awareness, which leads people to control skilled processes in a sequential, step-by-step manner (Baumeister & Showers, 1986). Attention at this step-by-step level disrupts the execution of well-learned or proceduralized skills (Beilock & Carr, 2001). Indeed, choking effects emerge readily in tasks that depend on well-rehearsed sensori-motor skills (Baumeister & Showers, 1986; Beilock & Carr, 2001). Choking patterns have further been documented in archival studies of sports finals (Wright, Jackson, Christie, McGuire, & Wright, 1991; Wright et al., 1995). Choking may also lower intellectual performance, such as math tests (Beilock et al., 2004) and categorization tasks (Markman, Maddox, & Worthy, 2006). A likely explanation is that performance pressure and other demands trigger distracting thoughts and worries, which use up working memory resources. Indeed, performance pressure has been found to lower performance on tasks that make high demands on working memory (i.e., explicit hypothesis testing), but not on tasks that make low demands on working memory (i.e., information-integration tasks; DeCaro, Rotar, Kendra, & Beilock, 2010; Markman et al., 2006; Schmader & Johns, 2003). Moreover, interventions that alleviate pressureinduced worries (e.g., talking aloud) reduce the likelihood of choking during intellectual tasks (DeCaro et al., 2010). Regulatory depletion A third way in which demanding conditions may impair self-regulation is by wearing people out. According to an influential account, self-regulation functions like a muscle that draws upon limited energy resources (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). People’s selfregulatory resources may therefore become depleted after an initial act of self-regulation. In line with the regulatory depletion model, performing a demanding self-control task in one domain (e.g., emotional suppression) often leads to impaired self-control in another, ostensibly unrelated domain (e.g., breaking one’s diet, Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). A meta-analysis of 83 studies yielded robust evidence for regulatory depletion effects, which were found to have a medium-to-large effect size (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010). Regulatory depletion can be induced by many different self-control tasks, including voluntary control of emotion, thoughts, impulses, and attention. Moreover, regulatory depletion may lower performance on the same broad range of self-control tasks. In line with the depletion model (and everyday experience), the meta-analysis revealed that people experience self-control as highly effortful. Moreover, exerting 330 Self-Regulation Under Demanding Conditions a 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6/4 (2012): 328–346, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00425.x self-control increases subjective fatigue and lowers blood glucose levels, the brain’s energy source (Gailliot & Baumeister, 2007). The self-control tasks studied in depletion research are in many ways representative of everyday life activities, such as controlling stereotypes (Gordijn, Hindriks, Koomen, Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 2004), self-presentation (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005), or refraining from tasty but fattening food (Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). Remarkably, depletion research suggests that performing these kinds of tasks for as little as 5–10 minutes can result in marked drops in self-regulatory efficiency. Consequently, regulatory depletion may be a frequent cause of self-regulatory failure in everyday life.