Ego-depletion can be induced in a number of different ways. It doesn’t have to be by sitting through movies of extreme emotional or violent content. All sorts of experiences can deplete our ego strength, from enduring bad smells, tackling difficult puzzles, putting up with others in crowded situations or even being electrocuted with an unpredictable mild shock.42 The need to control and the possibility that our willpower is limited, mean that we find it difficult to resist our urges afterward. We eat more junk food, drink more alcohol, spend more time looking at scantily clad members of the opposite sex43 (especially if we are in a stable relationship and usually have to resist this temptation) and generally fail to control our self as much as we think we can or would like to.
Even when we do things that we think make us look more acceptable to others in the group, such as presenting oneself as competent and likeable to a hostile audience, we are still draining our egos of willpower.44 That’s why we always feel like a stiff drink after a job interview. If we were just to act our selves, we are less stressed by these experiences. Even bosses feel it. Having to reprimand others or ostracize others when it is not in your nature to do so is ego-depleting.45 In an attempt to fit in with others’ expectations by changing how we present our self, we are creating unnecessary distortions of control that will come back to haunt us in moments of temptation. Adopting public personas that are at odds with our true emotional profiles may come at a cost. Individuals engage in behaviours that are the antithesis to their reputation, precisely because they are a rebound against the extreme positions that they are expected to maintain in public. Is this why politicians and judges seem to be routinely arrested for cruising for prostitutes?
Much of this sounds so obvious that one has to question whether you need to argue for some form of special mental muscle. Is it just another metaphor? Actually, Baumeister thinks not. He has shown that the brain needs to work out, to exert willpower, and this requires energy. Glucose is one of the brain’s vital fuels, and Baumeister and his colleagues have shown that glucose levels are lowered during ego-depleting tasks.46 In one experiment, adults had to have a discussion with a Hispanic interviewer about equal opportunities in which they had to avoid displaying any prejudice. Those who scored highly on questionnaire-based measures of racism had lower blood sugar than those who had no problem with interracial interactions. The good news is that you can reduce your ego-depletion. After drinking one of those sugary energy drinks, the glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream at a rate of thirty calories per minute and, after about ten minutes, can be metabolized to feed the brain. Compared to those who had been given an artificially sweetened drink, those who had a sugary drink were much more able to deal with stress. In one of their experiments, adults were asked read words about death. This is usually ego-depleting as it has a negative effect on adults’ subsequent ability to solve a later word puzzle task. However, not for those hyped up on a sugary drink. Reading about death did not affect their performance at all. Maybe that’s why we should order the extra large sugary Coke at the cinema if we are going to see horror movies like Audition.
All of this means that much of our efforts of self-control may be misguided. Most of us want to diet but what do we do? We resist the temptation of that first chocolate only to find that the craving is even greater. Reducing our caloric intake with the initial chocolate reduces our blood sugar and makes us more susceptible to ego-depletion later. It’s a vicious circle. Even if you manage to skip a meal, you may find your self gorging on alcohol or cigarettes or some other vice. Even moderation must be done in moderation.
Bladder Control
In an extension of his muscle metaphor, Baumeister believes you can exercise your willpower to improve your self-control. For example, he found that by getting students to monitor and control their posture over two weeks, they were much better on experiments that measured self-control compared to those allowed to lounge around. Or you might consider the power stance. Simply puffing out your shoulders and clenching your fists gives you more willpower 47 and increases testosterone levels in both men and women.48 Like the effects of forcing a smile, merely simulating body postures and actions can elicit the corresponding biological changes and mental states that usually trigger them in the first place.49
Another important key to success appears to depend on changing routines. Much of the problem of temptation stems from the habitual behaviours that we develop. It is much easier to give in to a set of behaviours than to create a new set. We are literally creatures of habit and so we easily fall into cycles of behaviour that seem difficult to break. If you really want to change your behaviour, then don’t try to make your self stop. This strategy will only rebound and make you more vulnerable. Instead, find an alternative to replace the activity. Not only does this provide a different scenario to occupy your activity, but it avoids the curse of ego-depletion.
Otherwise, you could simply practice holding your bladder and not going to the toilet. Mirjam Tuk found that after she drank several cups of coffee to stay awake during a long lecture, toward the end she was bursting to go but had to wait. She wondered if all the mental effort she recruited to avoid an embarrassing accident could be used to suppress other urges. In one of her studies,50 participants drank five cups of water (about 750 millilitres) and then, after about forty minutes, the time it takes the water to reach the bladder, gave them an adult delay-of-gratification task. They could choose a cash reward of $16, which would be given to them on the following day, or $30 in thirty-five days. In comparison to those who had not drunk the water, more of the participants who were bursting to go held out for the larger reward. Tuk even suggests that any type of financial decision-making might benefit from increased bladder control. While these findings seem to go against the ego-depletion account, Tuk thinks the difference might be explained by the fact that bladder control is largely under automatic unconscious processes, whereas ego-depletion is more cognitive. It remains to be seen how this story plays out in children, but I think it is very unlikely that we will be attempting such studies with children in our laboratory – I mean can you imagine the mess to clean up?
A Kid in the Candy Store
Remarkable though the ego-depletion research is, one does not need to evoke a core self at the helm of our decision processes and behaviours. Each of the experiments and findings can equally be described not so much as the ego under pressure but rather the shift in balance between all the external things that compete for activity. It certainly helps to evoke the self illusion in these situations because it provides us with a protagonist who fails to live up to expectations and ideals. Like a kid in a candy store, we see temptation all around us but maintain that the self is the one being tempted into making the decisions and choices. What if it is the other way around? What if there is a kid who likes different types of candy but each different candy competes for his attention? Each candy that pulls the kid closer is offset by yet another more delicious one that looms into view. Now the decisions and choices are not within the kid but reflect the relative strengths of everything out there that jostle for attention. Certainly, there is a kid being tempted in this candy store metaphor, but we are mistaken in locating decisions within the child. The same goes for free will.