RUNNING HEAD: Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources Being of Two Minds: Switching Mindsets Exhausts Self-Regulatory Resources

The human psyche is equipped with the capacity to solve similar problems in different ways. Social psychologists describe the different, complementary mental states that enable a person to reach a given end as mindsets. Mindset theories rest on the assumption that people can and do switch mindsets and that doing so requires a drastic change in perspective. Given the importance of being able to switch mindsets, it is surprising that the process that enables mindset switching to occur has gone uninvestigated. We propose that mindset switching is an executive function that relies on the same psychological resource that governs other acts of executive functioning, such as self-regulation. This perspective predicts that there are psychic costs to switching mindsets, such that switching mindsets, relative to maintaining a consistent mindset, consumes regulatory resources and thereby leaves people likelier to fail at subsequent self-regulation. Four experiments testing four types of mindset switches provides evidence for a general theory of mindset switching. Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources, p. 3 People have the remarkable ability to solve similar types of problems in different ways. In the physical world, one can use different tools to complete the same task. In the psychological world, one can use different mental states to accomplish a goal. These mental states, broadly referred to as mindsets, consist of mental processes that result in a general disposition or readiness to respond in a certain manner (Gibson, 1941; Gollwitzer, 1990). In a given situation, activating one mindset instead of another can change the preferences people have, the judgments they form, the decisions they make, and their satisfaction with the outcomes of these decisions (Freitas, Gollwitzer, & Trope, 2004; Stapel & Koomen 2001). Mindset theories rest on the assumption that people are not locked into a single modus operandi but are able to switch mindsets depending on the nature of the task they face. Unlike a strong preference such as handedness, people seem ready and able to adopt different mindsets depending on situational demands. Although there is ample evidence that people can and do switch mindsets, little is known about how such switching takes place. We propose that switching mindsets is an act of executive control and, as such, is governed by the same psychological mechanism that enables other forms of executive functioning. This perspective predicts that there are psychic costs to switching mindsets, such that switching mindsets, relative to maintaining a consistent mindset, consumes regulatory resources and thereby leaves people likelier to fail at subsequent self-regulation. Switching Mindsets and Executive Functioning Mindsets have been invoked to explain a number of psychological phenomena, dating back to some of the earliest days of modern psychology (Ach, 1905; Chapman, 1932). Recently, the use of mindset terminology has grown increasingly popular in theory development in areas as diverse as inference making (Fiedler, Schenck, Watling, & Menges, 2005), interpersonal Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources, p. 4 relationships (Gagne & Lydon, 2001), stereotyping (Sassenberg & Moskowitz, 2005), and fairness (Van Den Bos, 2002). In addition, many theories do not explicitly invoke the term “mindset” but nonetheless propose that people routinely engage in one of two or more qualitatively different cognitive operations when engaging in the same activity (e.g., Avnet & Higgins, 2003; Freitas et al., 2004; Higgins, 1997; Trope & Liberman, 2003). Mindset theories are diverse in content but share a common assumption about the underlying process: Given that different mindsets require approaching the world in drastically different ways, it is difficult to simultaneously activate and use more than one mindset at one time, much as it is difficult to simultaneously focus the eye on something far away and up close. Hence, when one mindset is active, using another mindset necessarily requires switching from the first. Although the assumption that people can switch mindsets is ubiquitous, mindset theories have scarcely addressed how this switching takes place. The current research proposes that switching mindsets is an act of the executive function, an aspect of the self that also governs self-regulation (Baumeister, 1998) and decision making (Vohs et al., 2008). We define self-regulation as the self’s exerting control in order to change habitual, natural, or dominant responses. A recent model of self-regulation suggests that diverse acts of self-control use a common—but finite—executive resource (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). According to this limited-resource model, each act of self-regulation consumes some of this resource, thereby leaving a smaller supply for subsequent attempts at self-regulation. Furthermore, when taxed, people are vulnerable to failures of self-control, including failure to persist at challenging tasks, keep one’s diet, or maintain emotion control (e.g., Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources, p. 5 If switching mindsets is indeed an act of the executive function, then it will consume selfregulatory resources and diminish people’s ability to self-regulate afterward. We propose a general theory of mindset switching, such that switching between any qualitatively different mindsets consumes precious self-regulatory resources. We tested this prediction using the twotask paradigm that has become standard procedure for assessing self-regulatory resource depletion (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998; Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). In the first phase of the current experiments, some participants performed a task that required them to switch mindsets, while others performed a similar task that did not require switching mindsets. In the second phase, participants completed a task that is known to require self-regulation (e.g., persistence, suppression of a natural impulse, etc.). We expected that, due to the taxing nature of switching mindsets, participants who repeatedly switch mindsets in the first task would perform worse on the second self-regulation task than participants who maintained a single mindset. Overview of Experiments In order to provide converging evidence in support of a general theory of mindset switching, we tested this hypothesis in four experiments across four types of mindsets, using four different measures of self-control. In Experiment 1, participants were encouraged to think abstractly, concretely, or to alternate between abstract and concrete perspectives. Next, participants were asked to consume a healthy but bad-tasting drink—an act requiring selfregulation. We predicted that participants who switched mindsets would drink less of the unpleasant liquid than would those who maintained a consistent mindset. In Experiment 2, participants made choices in a thorough, comparative style consistent with an assessment mindset, in a rapid, non-comparative style consistent with a locomotion mindset, or by switching between the two decision making modes. Subsequently, participants were given the goal of Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources, p. 6 suppressing their natural emotional responses while watching a humorous video. We predicted that participants who switched between assessment and locomotion mindsets would be less able to suppress their emotions than those who maintained a consistent mindset. In the third experiment, participants played a game in which the scoring was designed to activate a promotion mindset (by penalizing errors of omission), to activate a prevention mindset (by penalizing errors of commission), or to encourage switching between promotion and prevention mindsets (by alternating how points were distributed on every other question). Following the game, participants worked on an unsolvable puzzle. We predicted that participants who switched mindsets would give up sooner than participants who maintained a single mindset. Finally, in Experiment 4, bilingual participants completed a personality questionnaire in English, in their other language, or by alternating languages. Following the questionnaire, they squeezed a handgrip for as long as they could. Building on literature showing that speaking a particular language activates an associated language-mindset (Stapel & Semin 2007; Whorf, 1957), we predicted that switching languages would impair participants’ handgrip stamina relative to those who completed the questionnaire in a single language. Experiment 1 We first tested the hypothesis that mindset switching would tax self-regulatory resources using abstract and concrete mindsets. Construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003) proposes that people represent goals, actions, or events in one of two ways. High-level construals are abstract mental representations that contain comprehensive, summary information, whereas lowlevel construals are concrete mental representations that consist of detailed, incidental information. Abstract mindsets facilitate answering the question “why” with regard to a goal or action whereas concrete mindsets answer “how” (Freitas et al., 2004). For example, in one study, Switching Mindsets Exhausts Executive Resources, p. 7 participants who were in an abstract mindset explained common activities (e.g., moving into a new apartment) in terms of why they might be performed (e.g., “starting a new life”) but when in a concrete mindset participants described how the activities could be performed (e.g., “packing and carrying boxes”; Liberman & Trope, 1998). Because abstract and concrete mindsets invoke drastic changes in perception, they have been conceptualized as mutually exclusive mental orientations (Freitas et al., 2004; Liberman & Trope, 1998; Trope & Liberman, 2003).