What Is Self-Control?

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Baumeister and colleagues' strength model of self-control continues to enjoy applications and attention.

The authors of the model have devised a checklist of points that can increase replication success.

Alternate theories about depletion include emphasis on more general cognitive fatigue.

From neuroscience comes a suggestion that what looks like depletion might be cognitive adaptation.

The strength model of willpower enjoys both supporters and critics, earning both influence and critique since its development in the mid-'90s. It is often cited in discussions around psychology’s “replication crisis.”

The simple idea at the heart of the theory is that self-regulation or self-control taps into a resource that is limited in energy, so our willpower can become depleted as we use it. The exhaustion of our self-regulatory faculties was termed “ego depletion.” The basic experimental structure would see participants perform one task that required willpower, such as the Stroop task or the antisaccade task, or a control task that did not. They would follow this up with a second task, wherein........

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