“Reverse ego-depletion”: People in India find mental effort energising

By Christian Jarrett Exercising self-control leaves you feeling drained. That’s what many of us in the West believe and it’s what we seem to experience – think of the fatigue after a morning spent dealing with difficult clients or focused on spreadsheets on a computer screen. But in Indian culture, there is a widespread belief that mental effort is energising – that the more concentration and self-control you expend in one situation, the more invigorated you will feel for the next challenge. Psychology has, so far, mostly backed up our Western intuitions. Over 100 studies – nearly all conducted in the West – have shown that participants are less able to resist temptation or exercise mental focus after completing a mentally taxing task, an effect that researchers call “ego depletion”. But now a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has tested Indian participants and it shows for the first time a “reverse ego-depletion effect” – the more difficult an initial mental task, the better participants performed on a subsequent challenge. Belief in the benefits of exercising self-control permeates Indian Culture. Children are taught concentration techniques, such as focusing on a candle flame in a dark room. Regular prayers and meditation are widely encouraged. It’s a cultural view that appears to manifest in education: Indian children have longer class times and spend more time on homework than American children;...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Cognition Cross-cultural Source Type: blogs