Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2012 Oct 1;23(10):1137-44. doi: 10.1177/0956797612439069. Epub 2012 Sep 12.
Self-control is critical for achievement and well-being. However, people's capacity for self-control is limited and becomes depleted through use. One prominent explanation for this depletion posits that self-control consumes energy through carbohydrate metabolization, which further suggests that ingesting carbohydrates improves self-control. Some evidence has supported this energy model, but because of its broad implications for efforts to improve self-control, we reevaluated the role of carbohydrates in self-control processes. In four experiments, we found that (a) exerting self-control did not increase carbohydrate metabolization, as assessed with highly precise measurements of blood glucose levels under carefully standardized conditions; (b) rinsing one's mouth with, but not ingesting, carbohydrate solutions immediately bolstered self-control; and (c) carbohydrate rinsing did not increase blood glucose. These findings challenge metabolic explanations for the role of carbohydrates in self-control depletion; we therefore propose an alternative motivational model for these and other previously observed effects of carbohydrates on self-control.
自我控制对于成就和幸福至关重要。然而，人们的自我控制能力是有限的，并且会因使用而耗尽。一种解释这种耗竭的主要观点认为，自我控制通过碳水化合物代谢消耗能量，这进一步表明摄入碳水化合物可以改善自我控制。一些证据支持了这种能量模型，但由于它对改善自我控制的努力具有广泛的影响，我们重新评估了碳水化合物在自我控制过程中的作用。在四项实验中，我们发现：（a）在精心标准化的条件下，通过对血糖水平进行高度精确的测量，发现自我控制并没有增加碳水化合物的代谢；（b）用嘴漱口但不摄入碳水化合物溶液，就能立即增强自我控制；（c）碳水化合物漱口不会增加血糖。这些发现对碳水化合物在自我控制耗竭中的作用的代谢解释提出了挑战；因此，我们提出了一个替代的动机模型，用于解释这些以及其他先前观察到的碳水化合物对自我控制的影响。
