社会与工程心理学研究室知识库

自我控制对人类的健康和幸福至关重要，然而日常生活中自我控制失败的现象却十分常见。自我控制作为人类特有的心理特征之一，对其理论机制的探讨一直是心理学研究的重要课题。经典力量模型将其视为一种有限的能量，然而越来越多的研究对这一观点提出质疑，并指出需要结合认知理论重新思考自控失败的现象，实现多理论的整合。本研究以自我距离为切入点，从适应的角度探讨个体的自我距离倾向与自我距离干预训练对自我控制过程的作用机制，旨在为自我控制理论提供认知层面的解释，并为自我控制失败的规避提供指导。

本研究包括两个子研究：研究一采用实验室实验的方法，以 70 名高校学生为研究对象，将其在空间不相容任务上的表现作为认知控制能力的指标，探索不同自我距离倾向（自发性沉浸 V.S.自发性抽离）对自我控制的影响。研究二采用生态效度更高的经验取样法，以 242 名本科一年级学生为研究对象，将其习惯建立过程中在目标行为上的行为记录数据作为自我控制能力的指标，通过指导被试以不同主语制定目标和自我反思，对被试进行 2 周的自我距离干预（沉浸操纵组V.S.抽离操纵组）和行为记录追踪，检验自我距离的操纵在自我控制过程中的作用。结果发现：

（1）自发性抽离的个体在完成认知控制任务过程中，表现出对认知冲突的适应，不出现损耗现象；自发性沉浸的个体在完成认知控制任务过程中，未表现出对认知冲突的适应，存在损耗现象。

（2）连续 2 周指导被试以第三人称为主语设定目标，并以旁观者视角评价自己目标行为完成情况和完成过程中的感受有助于增大其自我距离，实现自我抽离的操纵。

（3）习惯建立的过程中，抽离组被试表现出对目标行为的适应，感受到更少的意志努力，并且随时间增加，意志努力有显著降低的趋势；沉浸组被试未表现出对目标行为的适应，感受到更多意志努力。

本研究结合实验室实验和经验取样法，证明自我距离可以作用于自我控制过程，更远的自我距离可以加速个体适应自控冲突的过程，同时使得个体在自控过程中感受到的意志努力减少，有效缓解自我控制后的损耗。

Self-control is important to body and mental health as well as happiness of human beings. However, the phenomena of self-control failure are very common in our daily life. As one of the most particular psychological quality of mankind, the discussion and exploration of the self-control mechanism have already been a major topic of psychology. The strength model of self-control is a classic theory that regards one’s self-control ability as a limited resource. However, more and more research doubt that and suggest the cognition process should also be considered to rethink the happening of self-control failure thus to realize an integration of multiple theories. This research explored the progress of self-control from an adapting view via spontaneous and manipulated self-distance, to add some cognitive perspectives to self-control theory, and contribute to decreasing self-control failure.

There were two sub-studies of the present research. Study 1 included 70 college students, and took their performance on spatial incompatible task as the indicator of their self-control ability, and verified the effect of spontaneous self-distance (self-immersed V.S. self-distanced) on self-control. The second study applied a more ecologically effective experience sampling method among 242 freshmen to explore the influence of manipulated self-distance on the process of habit formation. Study 2 trained participants to use a first/third person perspective to set up a goal, and keep using the same perspective to evaluate their performance for 2 weeks, so as to manipulate their self-distance (self-immersing V.S. self-distancing) and get the digit of their daily record. The results indicated that:

(1) Spontaneous self-distanced participants appeared to be adapting to the cognition conflict during the process of earlier cognitive control task, and didn’t present self-control failure in the next block of spatial incompatible task. However, those who spontaneously had an immersed perspective showed a significant ego-depletion effect.

(2) The training of self-distancing by guiding participants to use a third person perspective to set a goal and reflect themselves was effective.

(3) In the progress of forming a habit, those who under self-distanced training reported less mental effort, and the degree of their mental effort had a downward trend with time went on. While participants in the manipulated self-immersed group didn’t represent the adapting tendency, they reported more mental effort.

This research combined experiment in lab and experience sampling method in daily life to investigate the effect of self-distance during self-control progress, and proved that self-distance could influence the process of self-control. A farther self-distance would facilitate one’s adaptation to self-control conflict, and reduce the mental effort during self-control, which could buffer ego-depletion induced by former self-control activities.