Ackerman Joshua M, Goldstein Noah J, Shapiro Jenessa R, Bargh John A
Yale University, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2009 Mar;20(3):326-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02290.x. Epub 2009 Feb 3.
Acts of self-control may deplete an individual's self-regulatory resources. But what are the consequences of perceiving other people's use of self-control? Mentally simulating the actions of others has been found to elicit psychological effects consistent with the actual performance of those actions. Here, we consider how simulating versus merely perceiving the use of willpower can affect self-control abilities. In Study 1, participants who simulated the perspective of a person exercising self-control exhibited less restraint over spending on consumer products than did other participants. In Study 2, participants who took the perspective of a person using self-control exerted less willpower on an unrelated lexical generation task than did participants who took the perspective of a person who did not use self-control. Conversely, participants who merely read about another person's self-control exerted more willpower than did those who read about actions not requiring self-control. These findings suggest that the actions of other people may either deplete or boost one's own self-control, depending on whether one mentally simulates those actions or merely perceives them.
自我控制行为可能会耗尽个体的自我调节资源。但是，感知他人的自我控制行为会产生什么后果呢？研究发现，在心理上模拟他人的行为会引发与实际执行这些行为一致的心理效应。在此，我们探讨模拟与仅仅感知意志力的运用如何影响自我控制能力。在研究1中，模拟正在进行自我控制的人的视角的参与者，在消费产品支出上表现出的克制比其他参与者更少。在研究2中，采取自我控制者视角的参与者在一项不相关的词汇生成任务上所运用的意志力，比采取未进行自我控制者视角的参与者更少。相反，仅仅阅读他人自我控制行为的参与者比阅读不需要自我控制的行为的参与者运用了更多意志力。这些发现表明，他人的行为可能会耗尽或增强一个人的自我控制能力，这取决于这个人是在心理上模拟这些行为还是仅仅感知它们。
