Self-regulation in the Interpersonal Sphere van Vohs, K. D., Lasaleta, J. D., & Fennis, B. (2009) - Article

Self-control developed in the interpersonal sphere before the intrapersonal sphere. Societal expectations are the distal pressures that prompt people to control their behaviours. The need to belong was a strong force shaping humanity and it was therefore crucial to adhere to relational norms in order to be included and stay included. Research on self-control has taken a different tack, it emphasizes the personal sphere rather than the social sphere. The field of psychology has focused mainly on the inner self’s role in self-regulation. This is also with good reason: it makes sense to study the self-as-agent through its actions, emotions and decisions. Baumeister outlined three major features of selfhood: one involved reflexive self-awareness, the second interpersonal relations and the third the executive function. This article will focus on the influence of self-regulation on interpersonal relations, that is the interface between two roots of the self.

The limited-resource model of self-control

The limited resource model of self-regulation posits that any form of self-control behaviour that involves deliberate, conscious and controlled responses by the self draws on a limited resource, akin to strength or energy. The model holds that one act of active volition will have a detrimental impact on any subsequent act that draws from the same resource. The resource can be replenished, but at a slower rate than it is consumed. As a consequence, a series of self-regulatory acts will deplete the available resource to the point of self-regulatory failure. The self will then function less effective and this will result in reliance on habit, routine and automatic processes. Research has pointed out that not only prototypical instances of the exertion of self-control drain this resource, but also a variety of other executive functions, like generation and regulation of thought and feelings. Research using the self-regulatory resource model typically uses a paradigm involving two resource-consuming tasks. In the first phase, participants were asked to perform a task that is thought to consume self-regulatory resources or they perform a less taxing version of the experimental task. The type of task participants are requested to complete constitutes the key independent variable. Performance on a second and unrelated resource-consuming task is measured and this serves as the dependent measure. If performance on the second task is impaired as a function of having completed the first demanding task, a state of self-regulatory resource depletion is inferred. The completion of the first task requires the consumption of large quantities of the self-regulatory resource. This will reduce the person’s capabilities to successfully regulate behaviour during an ensuing period in which the second task is presented. This situations is likened to a hangover-effect. Many studies have used this paradigm and the results support the basic tenets of the limited resource model of self-control. Much of this research has focused on intra-psychic phenomena that are affected by or will affect the resources available for self-control

Another study by Baumeister in which he examined something he called ego depletion, showed that people who exerted conscious self-control on one activity subsequently performed poorer on a second unrelated task. In one study he showed that participants who were requested to eat unpalatable food (radishes) persisted less on a subsequent frustrating, unsolvable puzzle task than did participants requested to eat enjoyable food or no food. People had to overcome the resistance to eat the less-than-tasty radishes and this consumed self-control resources and the resulting depletion carried over to detrimentally impact participants’ stamina at the frustrating puzzle. The research of Baumeister also shows that resource depletion effects could also be brought about by actively suppressing emotions or performing a cognitively demanding task involving syllogistic reasoning. Another study demonstrated that depleting consumers of their self-regulatory resources by mental or emotional self-control tasks resulted in increases on several indexes of impulsivity in the marketplace. Another study showed that when food was freely presented to dieters and non-dieters, dieters became more depleted than non-dieters. This was because the dieters needed considerable amounts of regulatory resources to resists. The researchers found that depletion effects for dieters were not only restricted to eating-related behaviours, but extended to non-food related self-regulatory behaviours as well. Once depleted, people will exhibit reduced performance at any subsequent act of self-control. Self-regulatory resources are also involved in logical reasoning and higher-order reflective processes.

Self-control and public social behaviours

Many studies have found support for the notion of finite resources of self-control in the personal sphere, but it does not mean that public, interpersonal functioning is left unaffected by it. Self-control is influential in the realm of interpersonal behaviour. Interpersonal interactions can be inefficient and involve active self-regulation, which can lead to later self-control failure. Only recently has the limited resource model begun to be applied to interpersonal phenomena, but several issues have received attention. For instance, research has shown that active self-representation requires self-regulatory resources. Studies have also found that counter-normative modes of self-presentation can be quite resource-demanding and they deplete self-regulatory resources to a larger extent than normative modes of self-presentation. In one study, researchers states that conventional gender roles implicate men as having to highlight their personal accomplishments and women their interpersonal skills. Going against this typical style will result in reduced self-regulatory resources and worse self-control. So when men had to presentment themselves by focusing on their interpersonal skills and women who presented themselves in terms of their personal accomplishments showed poorer performance in subsequent tasks than participants who presented themselves in accordance with gender roles. Other studies show that impression formation processes may also leave people prone to self-regulatory failure.

Weakened self-regulation

Conscious self-regulation may be especially relevant in dyadic settings where the stakes are high, like when people are confronted with fundraisers, politicians or other influence agents that want something from them. These are often situations in which the target’s limited resources are easily drained and the person will become particularly susceptible to an influence attempt. Almost all compliance-gaining procedures that influence professionals use, share one key feature: the presence of multiple decision moments or sequential requests. You’ve probably already heard of the foot-in-the-door technique. This starts with a small request and it is followed by a larger target request. Consciously attending and responding to these initial requests drains self-regulatory resources. The resulting state of regulatory resource depletion then increases the chances of compliance through the use of decisional heuristics that are embedded in the influence context.

Interpersonal benefits of good self-control

When you view personal relationships, you can think about the importance of self-control for overriding selfish and self-interested impulses, focusing attention on one’s partner and not attractive alternatives and being emotionally restrained. Failing to adhere to the standards of one’s relationship partners can lead to social rejection and it is therefore beneficial to exert self-control in interpersonal relations. One study indicated that suppressing emotions was more demanding and required more self-regulatory resources than not engaging in emotional suppression. These people exhibited less loyalty to their partners and showed more constructive behaviour than people not suppressing emotions. Self-control has a beneficial impact on relationships through diminishing the self-serving bias. This bias occurs when people give themselves credit for good outcomes but blame outside factors for bad outcomes. This bias is problematic in intimate relationships and has been linked to relationship dissolution. One study showed that people who had to suppress their emotions and thus had their self-regulatory resources depleted gave less credit to their partner when they received positive feedback for building a structure with blocks. They also said that the partner had a larger role when the outcome of the building was bad. Overriding the desire to attribute good events to oneself and bad events to others requires self-regulatory resources and when there are not many resources available, relationship damaging behaviour can occur.

Some researchers claim that social life comes with an implicit contract. This contract involves an exchange between the individual and society. The society will obviously benefit from harmonious relations among people and the individual will benefit through gaining social inclusion. People must suppress selfish impulses and conform to social norms and they in return expect to be rewarded with social acceptance. This means that being good at self-control ought to yield social benefits. This bargain will not always go through. Individuals can fail to regulate selfish tendencies or society can fail to reward a person for self-control. What happens then? At the individual level, when a person fails to regulate selfish urges, the result can be rejection, unemployment or imprisonment. When society fails to adhere to its part of the bargain, the person may respond by failing to self-regulate. Studies also support this. Studies showed that participants who were socially rejected demonstrated less self-control than those who were socially accepted. According to the implicit bargain theory, failure to self-regulate would occur because the person perceives self-control effects as futile. However, there are also studies that show that social rejection does not necessarily decrease executive performance. Social acceptance does also not always enhance executive performance.

Gains from losing self-control

Most research on self-control focuses on the positive benefits of self-control. Resisting impulses to eat too much, gamble or show aggression have been linked to positive outcomes, like healthier lifestyles and interpersonal relationships. Self-regulation improves the chances of attaining goals in these domains. But, even good self-control can lead to negative outcomes. Researchers suggest that people sometimes engage in personally-harmful behaviours as a route to social acceptance. Despite not wanting to perform an adverse behaviour, people sometimes can do just that because they perceive it will enhance social acceptance. Engaging in behaviour that the person finds aversive requires self-control insofar as the person must override the initial impulses to avoid the behaviour. There is physical discomfort that comes from binge eating and most people find this aversive enough that they stop eating long before their stomach becomes painfully full. Most people will find binge eating aversive. However, binge eating has been linked with being popular in some social circles. This is also the case for alcohol. Initially, the taste of alcohol is aversive to the senses by many adolescents drink as a means of social acceptance from peers. This is also the case for drugs. Delinquent behaviour like graffiti and property damage can also be boosted by pressure from peers. When somebody sees his friend engage in delinquent behaviour, he or she may be more willing to show this behaviour as well. People want social approval from friends. A silent signal of approval can elicit delinquent behaviours among adolescents because it is paired with interpersonal inclusion.