The effects of ritual and self‐control resources depletion on deceptive behavior: Evidence from behavioral and ERPs studies

Abstract Although researchers have indicated that individuals with depleted self‐control resources have lower self‐control behavior and exhibit more deceptive behaviors, recent psychological studies have shown that ritual can improve self‐control and increase the likelihood that the individual makes prosocial decisions. However, little is known about whether ritual can regulate an individual's engagement in deceptive behavior when their self‐control resources are depleted. This study adopted the spot‐the‐difference task to investigate the influences of ritual and self‐control resources depletion on simple self‐control behavior and deceptive behavior (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2); furthermore, relevant neural processes were explored using event‐related potentials (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 showed that individuals with depleted self‐control resources had lower self‐control behavior and individuals performing a ritual had higher self‐control behavior. Experiment 2 showed that individuals with depleted self‐control resources exhibited more deceptive behaviors and individuals performing a ritual exhibited fewer deceptive behaviors; furthermore, ritual reduced deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. Experiment 3 found that individuals with depleted self‐control resources had larger P2 amplitudes after performing a ritual. Moreover, individuals with depleted self‐control resources had larger LPP amplitudes over parietal sites after performing a ritual. These findings suggested that performing ritual may be an effective measure of inhibiting individuals with depleted self‐control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior. Our findings verify the ego‐depletion model and provide a new perspective for reducing deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. We provide evidence that rituals could modulate deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. This reveals that performing rituals may be an effective measure for inhibiting individuals with depleted self‐control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior.