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Figure 10.10Results From Muraven, Tice, and Baumeister, 1998
Participants who were instructed to regulate their emotions, either by increasing or decreasing their emotional
responses to a move, had less energy left over to squeeze a handgrip in comparison to those who did not regulate
their emotions.
Source: Adapted from Muraven, M., Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Self-control as a limited resource:
Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 74(3), 774–789.
In other studies, people who had to resist the temptation to eat chocolates and cookies, who made important
decisions, or who were forced to conform to others all performed more poorly on subsequent tasks that took energy,
including giving up on tasks earlier and failing to resist temptation (Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). [34]
Can we improve our emotion regulation? It turns out that training in self-regulation—just like
physical training—can help. Students who practiced doing difficult tasks, such as exercising,
avoiding swearing, or maintaining good posture, were later found to perform better in laboratory
tests of emotion regulation such as maintaining a diet or completing a puzzle (Baumeister,
Gailliot, DeWall, & Oaten, 2006; Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, 2007; Oaten & Cheng,
2006). [35]^