Control of Ego-Depletion:Research and Application in Competitive Sports

Ego-depletion refers to impaired self-control task performance after effortful control over dominant responses because individuals’self-control capacity is a limited resource.How to control the ego-depletion effect or to decrease the level of negative influence of ego-depletion is one of hot topics in recent psychology research.By introducing 22experiments we conducted in recent years this paper echoed two big questions related to control of the ego depletion effect,i.e.,how to prevent ego depletion before it happens,how to compensate ego depletion after it happens and moderation and mediation of ego depletion effect.In the area of prevention of ego depletion this paper introduced our findings of 13experiments concerning strategies of rational emotion adjustment,thinking control,prevention of cognitive dissonance and social comparison,value affirmation and attribute affirmation,and formation of execute intention.In the area of compensation of ego depletion this paper discussed our findings of 9experiments on compensation effects of positive emotion,example-priming,self affirmation and execute intention.Then on the basis of those research findings applied suggestions were given for control of ego depletion effect in sport training and competitions.