The authors review evidence that self-control may consume a limited resource. Exerting self-control may consume self-control strength, reducing the amount of strength available for subsequent self-control efforts. Coping with stress, regulating negative affect, and resisting temptations require self-control, and after such self-control efforts, subsequent attempts at self-control are more likely to fail. Continuous self-control efforts, such as vigilance, also degrade over time. These decrements in self-control are probably not due to negative moods or learned helplessness produced by the initial self-control attempt. These decrements appear to be specific to behaviors that involve self-control; behaviors that do not require self-control neither consume nor require self-control strength. It is concluded that the executive component of the self--in particular, inhibition--relies on a limited, consumable resource.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/126/2/247.pdf

Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: does self-control resemble a muscle?

The literature of social psychology contains a number of phenomena that appear to be paradoxical. For example, persons who face a threatening experience prefer to affiliate with threatened others rather than with nonthreatened others (Schachter, 1959), and persons in groups in which reward is equally distributed are less satisfied compared with persons in groups that include one particularly unfortunate member (Brickman, 1975). The purpose of this article is to show that these phenomena are best construed as social comparison processes and that various phenomena derive from one basic process termed downward comparison; the essence of this process is that persons can enhance their own subjective well-being by comparing themselves with a less fortunate other. In this article I show that downward comparison is a process evoked by negative affect, that there is considerable evidence for self-enhancing comparison processes, and that downward comparison effects are involved in several areas of social-psycho logical research.

Downward Comparison Principles in Social Psychology

Examines the Dollard et al. (1939) frustration-aggression hypothesis. The original formulation's main proposition is limited to interference with an expected attainment of a desired goal on hostile (emotional) aggression. Although some studies have yielded negative results, others support the core proposition. Frustrations can create aggressive inclinations even when they are not arbitrary or aimed at the subject personally. Interpretations and attributions can be understood partly in terms of the original analysis but they can also influence the unpleasantness of the thwarting. A proposed revision of the 1939 model holds that frustrations generate aggressive inclinations to the degree that they arouse negative affect. Evidence regarding the aggressive consequences of aversive events is reviewed, and Berkowitz's cognitive-neoassociationistic model is summarized. In 1939, researchers at the Yale University Institute of Human Relations published a small monograph that has had a tremendous impact, directly or indirectly, on almost all of the behavioral sciences. Led by,John Dollard, Leonard Doob, Neal Miller, O. H. Mowrer, and Robert Sears (1939), the group attempted to account for virtually all of human aggression with a few basic ideas. Their book, Frustration and Aggression, quickly attracted considerable attention. Seven articles in one 1941 issue of Psychological Review were devoted to the controversy generated by the monograph, and excerpts from these papers as well as from other related articles were reprinted in a major section of the classic Readings in Social Psychology (Newcomb & Hartley, 1947). Most of the studies investigating the causes and consequences of aggression in the immediately following decades were oriented, to some extent at least, toward issues raised by the Yale group's analysis (see Berkowitz, 1958, 1962; Buss, 1961).

Frustration-aggression hypothesis: examination and reformulation.

Most empirical work on product symbolism has paid relatively little attention to how products are used by consumers in everyday social life. This paper argues that the subjective experience imparted by the consumption of many products substantially contributes to the consumer's structuring of social reality, self-concept, and behavior. Moreover, the consumer often relies upon the social meanings inherent in products as a guide to the performance of social roles, especially when role demands are novel. While marketing theory traditionally views products as post hoc responses to underlying needs, the focus here is on conditions under which products serve as a priori stimuli to behavior. By integrating concepts adapted from symbolic interactionism, this approach stresses the importance of product symbolism as a mediator of self-definition and role performance.

The role of products as social stimuli: A symbolic interactionism perspective.

This research examines a theory of feedback-seeking in organizations. Individuals are hypothesized to seek feedback on important issues and in new and uncertain situations. Results support these hy...

Feedback-Seeking in Individual Adaptation: A Resource Perspective

Archival data covering a 2-year period were obtained from three sources in order to assess relations among ozone levels, nine measures of meteorological conditions, day of the week, holidays, seasonal trends, family disturbances, and assaults against persons. Confirming results obtained in laboratory studies, more family disturbances were recorded when ozone levels were high than when they were low. Two-stage regression analyses indicated that disturbances and assaults against persons were also positively correlated with daily temperatures and negatively correlated with wind speed and levels of humidity. Further, distributed lag (Box-Jenkins) analyses indicated that high temperatures and low winds preceded violent episodes, which occurred more often on dry than humid days. In addition to hypothesized relations, it was also found that assaults follow complaints about family disturbances, which suggests that the latter could be used to predict and lessen physical violence. It was concluded that atmospheric conditions and violent episodes are not only correlated but also appear to be linked in a causal fashion. This conclusion, however, was qualified by a discussion of the limitations of archival data and concomitant time-series analysis.

/pdf/air-pollution-weather-and-violent-crimes-concomitant-time-1y8u3e6dcq.pdf

Air pollution, weather, and violent crimes: Concomitant time-series analysis of archival data.

Sixty undergraduate males delivered electric shocks to a confederate as punishment for making errors on a learning task. Half did so after being exposed to an aggressive model, whereas the other half did so without being exposed. Shocks were delivered from a room whose atmosphere was either unpolluted or contaminated by a moderately unpleasant odor (ethyl mercoptan) or an extremely obnoxious stench (ammonium sulfide). As hypothesized, the moderately unpleasant pollutant facilitated higher levels of aggression than either the extremely obnoxious one or the absence of pollution. However, contrary to a second hypothesis, pollution facilitated aggression only in the model's absence. The confirmation of the first hypothesis was interpreted as supporting and extending the affect-aggression model from heat research. It was speculated that disconfirmation of the second hypothesis resulted either from a ceiling effect or from malodor distracting attention away from the aggressive cues of the model. The methodological, theoretical, and applied implications of research on air pollution were discussed.

The Air Pollution Experience and Physical Aggression1

It was predicted that negative affect associated with one component of air pollution (malodor) reduces attraction toward both similar and dissimilar strangers. In one experiment, 27 subjects rated attitudinally similar or dissimilar strangers while confined in a room whose atmosphere was ambient (no-odor control) or polluted by ammonium sulfide. Contrary to predictions, similar strangers elicited greatest liking in the polluted atmosphere. It was suggested that air pollution had increased attraction for another who might be experiencing the same disagreeable situation (i.e., “shared stress”). In a second experiment, this suggestion was examined by assuring subjects that they were alone and would not meet the similar or dissimilar person they rated. As predicted, exposure to either ammonium sulfide or butyric acid combined additively with attitudinal dissimilarity to depress liking, mood-affect, time spent in the setting, and ratings of the environment. These results were viewed as consistent with the reinforcement-affect model of attraction, but it was cautioned that the effects of air pollution may depend on social factors, such as shared stress, and dosage level of the pollutant.

Air Pollution and interpersonal Attraction1

Loud speech, conglomerate noise, and behavioral aftereffects.

In numerous applications of the analysis of variance it is necessary to compute the power of F tests having numerically high alpha (significance) levels. This article tabulates the power of F tests for numerator degrees of freedom, df = 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12; denominator df = 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 20, 40, 60, 120; alternative hypotheses, phi = 2.(.2)3.0; and significance levels, alpha = .05, .10(.10),.50. The use of these tables is illustrated with a brief numerical example.

James Rotton

Papers

Air pollution, weather, and violent crimes: Concomitant time-series analysis of archival data.

The Air Pollution Experience and Physical Aggression1

Air Pollution and interpersonal Attraction1

Loud speech, conglomerate noise, and behavioral aftereffects.

Power Tables for Analysis of Variance