Cognitive Control

Cognitive Self-Control

• Vital to a person's success living and working with others
• Allows a person to hold in ruling responses in order to reach a goal or response.

Let me put it this way..

• Cognitive control works like a muscle.
• It can become depleted when used repeatedly (Ego-Depletion).
• The result can cause a person to have trouble using their cognitive control and therefore quit or give up on the goal.
• (Baumeister 2015)

But that is no excuse..

• Self control does not completely vanish when it is "over used."
• "If an important challenge or opportunity arises, more self-control can be tapped." (Baumeister 2015)

Think of it like this...
A marathon runner has already ran 25 miles of their marathon. Somehow they still find the energy to finish that last mile. Just like muscles store energy for the "last leg", self-control is able to do the same thing.

Now What?

Reward can diminish "Ego-Depletion"

• Takayuki Goto, researched whether reinforcement could be used to lessen the depletion of self control.
• The results showed that cognitive control can become easier through reinforcement learning by making positive responses habit.
• This, in turn, lessens the effects of ego depletion. (2013)

References

• Baumeister, R. F. (2015). conquer yourself, conquer the world. Scientific American, 312(4), 60-65.
• Goto, T., & Kusumi, T. (2013). How can reward contribute to efficient self-control? Reinforcement of task-defined responses diminishes ego-depletion. Motivation & Emotion, 37(4), 726-732. doi:10.10078/s11031-031-9356-3