The Effect of Different Control Contents on Athletes’ Self-control Depletion

Two experiments were conducted to test the effect of different control contents on athletes' self-control depletion.40 basketball collegiate students participated in experiment 1;38 football collegiate students participated in experiment 2.In experiment 1,participants engaged in the thought control task for five minutes and then performed a Stroop task.In experiment 2,participants engaged in the thought control task for five minutes and then performed a Visual-CCPT task.MANOVA results showed that there were significantly differences on accuracy of Stroop tasks between Not-to-think-coach group and other groups;commission numbers of Visual-CCPT between Not-to-think-anything group and control group are also significantly different,Not-to-think-coach group had more commission numbers than Not-to-think-white-bear group and control group.These results suggest that the tasks,which are more close to sport situations,are more difficult to control,concomitantly result in more self-control depletion.Athletes should transfer their attention from contest when encountering negative thinking and stop telling them to think nothing when encountering distracting thoughts.