Will Fatigue Lead to Lie? Ego Depletion Weaken Honest Behavior and its Mitigation Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract: In order to examine the performance of honest behavior under the high or low ego depletion and whether guilt emotions can buffer the negative impact of ego depletion on honest behavior, this study was based on the self-control resource model and used two progressive behavioral experiments. In Experiment 1, the "non-dominant hand reaction" task was used to manipulate the level of ego depletion. The prediction accuracy in the "guess coin positive and negative" was used as an indicator of honest behavior. The results showed that subjects under high depletion condition were more likely to lie about their correct rate than were the ones under low depletion. Based on the results of experiment 1, in experiment 2, "point game" task was used to measure the honest behavior and increased a guilt emotion task. The results were consistent with those of experiment 1. Moreover, we found that the dishonest behavior decreased after evoking guilt emotions. Therefore, ego depletion reduced the honest behavior. However, this effect could be buffered after evoking the guilt emotion.

Key words: ego depletion, honest behavior, guilt emotion, mitigation

摘要： 为检验个体在高、低自我损耗状态下的诚信行为表现，以及内疚情绪启动能否缓解自我损耗对诚信行为的负性影响。本研究基于自我控制资源模型理论，通过2个递进行为实验进行检验。实验1采用“非优势手反应”任务操纵被试的自我损耗水平，以被试在随后的“猜测硬币正反面”游戏中预测的正确率作为诚信行为的指标，结果发现：相比于低损耗者，高自我损耗者谎报更高的预测正确率。而实验2在此基础上，进一步采用“点游戏”任务测量诚信行为，并增设内疚情绪启动任务，结果不仅证实了实验1的结果，还发现诱发内疚情绪有助于降低非诚信行为的水平。据此可认为，自我损耗降低了诚信行为，而启动内疚情绪可缓解这一效应。

关键词: 自我损耗, 诚信行为, 内疚情绪, 缓解

CLC Number:

B849

NIE Yangang, LI Zhenhua, DOU Kai, MAO Lanping. Will Fatigue Lead to Lie? Ego Depletion Weaken Honest Behavior and its Mitigation Mechanism[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2018, 16(4): 525-533.

聂衍刚, 利振华, 窦凯, 毛兰平. 累了会说谎？自我损耗削弱诚信行为及其缓解机制[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2018, 16(4): 525-533.

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