Self-Control as the Fuel for Effective Self-Regulation at Work: Antecedents, Consequences, and Boundary Conditions of Employee Self-Control

In order to perform work tasks successfully and interact effectively with coworkers, it is necessary for employees to exert self-control over their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors while at work. For example, self-control helps employees maintain focus on their current goals and assignments, block out distractions and irrelevant information, align their behaviors and displayed emotions with company norms, and suppress deviant and rude impulses. According to resource allocation theories of self-regulation, exercising self-control is not a resource neutral act—rather, it draws from a finite pool of attentional resources. When these resources are depleted, people tend to show diminished self-control on ensuing activities until they have had opportunities for rest or recovery activities. In this chapter, we summarize our research that has examined work-related causes and consequences of self-control depletion. We also review individual differences that have been found to constrain depletion-based effects, thus verifying that people's skill, motivation, and beliefs feature into self-control processes. Lastly, we highlight research which extends resource allocation theories of self-regulation by considering alternative mechanisms that produce similar patterns as self-control depletion effects, by exploring possible curvilinear effects of depletion, and by shifting attention to self-control recovery (rather than self-control depletion).