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Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues

Exerting self-control in a first task weakens self-control in a second completely unrelated task (ego-depletion). It has been proposed that ego-depletion increases approach motivation which would amplify positive emotions to appetitive cues. Here we investigated the effect of the depletion of cognit...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wiesner, Christian Dirk, Lindner, Christoph
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5283671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28141811
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170245
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author Wiesner, Christian Dirk
Lindner, Christoph
author_facet Wiesner, Christian Dirk
Lindner, Christoph
author_sort Wiesner, Christian Dirk
collection PubMed
description Exerting self-control in a first task weakens self-control in a second completely unrelated task (ego-depletion). It has been proposed that ego-depletion increases approach motivation which would amplify positive emotions to appetitive cues. Here we investigated the effect of the depletion of cognitive self-control on the subsequent emotional evaluation of appetitive cues. Participants of the depletion group copied a text omitting frequent letters and thereby exerting self-control to inhibit automated writing habits. Participants of the control group just copied the text. In a subsequent task participants had to rate valence and arousal of their responses to neutral vs. positive pictures of humans, animals, food, or sceneries. Ego-depletion caused more positive valence ratings of neutral pictures and lower arousal ratings of positive pictures. The findings do not support the notion that ego-depletion increases approach motivation in general. Rather they suggest that—without a specific motivational context—depletion of cognitive self-control differentially alters the immediate emotional evaluation of appetitive cues.
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spelling pubmed-52836712017-02-17 Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues Wiesner, Christian Dirk Lindner, Christoph PLoS One Research Article Exerting self-control in a first task weakens self-control in a second completely unrelated task (ego-depletion). It has been proposed that ego-depletion increases approach motivation which would amplify positive emotions to appetitive cues. Here we investigated the effect of the depletion of cognitive self-control on the subsequent emotional evaluation of appetitive cues. Participants of the depletion group copied a text omitting frequent letters and thereby exerting self-control to inhibit automated writing habits. Participants of the control group just copied the text. In a subsequent task participants had to rate valence and arousal of their responses to neutral vs. positive pictures of humans, animals, food, or sceneries. Ego-depletion caused more positive valence ratings of neutral pictures and lower arousal ratings of positive pictures. The findings do not support the notion that ego-depletion increases approach motivation in general. Rather they suggest that—without a specific motivational context—depletion of cognitive self-control differentially alters the immediate emotional evaluation of appetitive cues. Public Library of Science 2017-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5283671/ /pubmed/28141811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170245 Text en © 2017 Wiesner, Lindner http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wiesner, Christian Dirk
Lindner, Christoph
Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title_full Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title_fullStr Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title_full_unstemmed Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title_short Weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
title_sort weakening self-control biases the emotional evaluation of appetitive cues
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5283671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28141811
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170245
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