Mortality Salience and Metabolism: Glucose Drinks Reduce Worldview Defense Caused by Mortality Salience

The current work tested the hypothesis that a glucose drink would reduce worldview defense following mortality salience. Participants consumed either a glucose drink or placebo, wrote about either death or dental pain, and then completed a measure of worldview defense (viewing positively someone with pro-US views and viewing negatively someone with anti-US views). Mortality salience increased world- view defense among participants who consumed a placebo but not among participants who consumed a glucose drink. Glucose might reduce defensiveness after mortality salience by increasing the effectiveness of the self-controlled suppression of death-related thought, by providing resources to cope with mortality salience and reducing its threatening nature, or by distancing the individual from actual physical death

Improved Self-Control Associated with Using Relatively Large Amounts of Glucose: Learning Self-Control Is Metabolically Expensive

The current study examined whether changes in glucose during a self-control task would predict changes in self-control performance later on. Participants attended two experimental sessions, spaced two weeks apart. During each session, they had their glucose measured, completed the Stroop task as a measure of self-control, and then had their glucose measured again. Larger decreases in glucose (from before to after the Stroop task) during the first session predicted larger increases in improvement on the Stroop task during the second session, in the form of increased speed. Learning self-control might benefit from using larger amounts of glucose. Learning self-control is metabolically expensive. These findings raise the possibility that self-control fatigue occurs because metabolic energy is depleted during the learning of self-control

Hunger and Reduced Self-Control in the Laboratory and across the World: Reducing Hunger as a Self-Control Panacea

Ten studies link hunger to reduced self-control. Higher levels of hunger-as assessed by self-report, time since last eating, or physiology-predicted reduced self-control, as indicated by increased racial prejudice, (hypothetical) sexual infidelity, passivity, accessibility of death thoughts and perceptions of task difficulty, as well as impaired Stroop performance and decreased self-monitoring. Increased rates of hunger across 200 countries predicted increased war killings, suggestive of reduced aggressive restraint. In a final experiment, self-reported hunger mediated the effect of hungry (v fed) participants performing worse on the Stroop task, suggesting a causal relationship of hunger reducing self-control

Breaking the Rules: Low Trait or State Self-Control Increases Social Norm Violations

Two pilot and six studies indicated that poor self-control causes people to violate social norms and rules that are effortful to follow. Lower trait self-control was associated with a greater willingness to take ethical risks and use curse words. Participants who completed an initial self-control task that reduced the capacity for self-control used more curse words and were more willing to take ethical risks than participants who completed a neutral task. Poor self-control was also associated with violating explicit rules given by the experimenter. Depleting self-control resources in a self-control exercise caused participants subsequently to talk when they had been instructed to remain silent. Low trait self-control and poor performance on a behavioral measure of self-control (the Stroop task) predicted poor compliance following experimental instructions over a 2-week span. Poor self-control thus undermines adherence to some social rules and regulations, therefore possibly contributing to a broad variety of social ills

Stereotypes and prejudice in the blood: sucrose drinks reduce prejudice and stereotyping

"Prejudice and stereotyping cause social problems and intergroup tension. The current work examined whether bolstering self-control by giving participants glucose would reduce stereotype use for an impression formation task. Previous work has demonstrated that self-control depends on biologically expensive brain processes that consume energy derived from glucose in the bloodstream. In the current study, glucose was manipulated via lemonade sweetened with either sugar or Splenda. Compared to the control group, the participants in the glucose condition used fewer stereotypes when writing an essay about a day in the life of a gay man. In addition, high-prejudice participants in the glucose condition used fewer derogatory statements in their essays than high-prejudice participants in the control condition. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of self-control resources in the effective regulation of prejudice and stereotyping." [author's abstract

The physiology of willpower: linking blood glucose to self-control

Past research indicates that self-control relies on some sort of limited energy source. This review suggests that blood glucose is one important part of the energy source of self-control. Acts of self-control deplete relatively large amounts of glucose. Self-control failures are more likely when glucose is low or cannot be mobilized effectively to the brain (i.e., when insulin is low or insensitive). Restoring glucose to a sufficient level typically improves self-control. Numerous self-control behaviors fit this pattern, including controlling attention, regulating emotions, quitting smoking, coping with stress, resisting impulsivity, and refraining from criminal and aggressive behavior. Alcohol reduces glucose throughout the brain and body and likewise impairs many forms of self-control. Furthermore, self-control failure is most likely during times of the day when glucose is used least effectively. Self-control thus appears highly susceptible to glucose. Self-control benefits numerous social and interpersonal processes. Glucose might therefore be related to a broad range of social behavior

Self-esteem, belongingness, and worldview validation: does belongingness exert a unique influence upon self-esteem?

The current work examined whether belongingness influences self-esteem independently from worldview validation (the extent to which one lives to beliefs that are shared by others). Questionnaire measures demonstrated that people with stronger social ties had higher self-esteem, and that worldview validation did not account for this relationship. Further, belongingness and worldview validation were manipulated such that they pulled self-esteem in opposing directions, yet belongingness still influenced self-esteem. Participants had higher self-esteem after writing about social acceptance than rejection even though acceptance was accompanied by either failing to live up to an important value or having one’s worldviews rejected. This latter effect was most pronounced among participants with high social anxiety. Results indicate that belongingness makes a unique contribution to self-esteem