Self-Control Conservation: A Proactive or Reactive Strategy?

Preliminary evidence suggests that when individuals believe that they will have to exert self-control in the near future, their performance on an intervening self-control task suffers so that limited self-control resources are conserved for later use (Muraven, Shmueli, & Burkley, 2006). The current research sought to clarify whether conservation is enacted as a proactive strategy, before resources have actually been taxed. To test this, participants who anticipated a future self-control task were given the opportunity to avoid exerting self-control in the present. Inconsistent with a proactive account of conservation, participants did not choose to avoid self-control tasks. This suggests that when facing multiple self-control demands, individuals likely do not recognize the need to save resources until after exerting self-control.