Engaging in self‐regulation results in low‐level construals.

Previous research has suggested that self-regulation results in low-level construals but has inferred construal levels after selfregulation only indirectly, through construal-dependent judgments and choices. In the present paper, we demonstrate a direct link between engaging in self-regulation and low-level construals, by manipulating self-regulation and subsequently assessing construal levels using well-established and straightforward measures of construal level in three studies. Participants who engaged in self-regulation subsequently provided lower egocentric spatial distance estimates (Studies 1A and 1B), formed more groups when categorizing objects (Study 2), and used more concrete language when describing cartoon main characters’ behavior (Study 3) than participants who did not engage in self-regulation. These findings provide direct evidence that low-level construals result from engaging in self-regulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The capacity to self-regulate is an important feature of human nature. We define self-regulation as the self’s capacity to alter its own habitual or unwanted responses with the goal of implementing moredesirable responses. Through self-regulation, people are able to regulate their thoughts, control their emotions, alter their performance, and/or inhibit their impulses (cf. Vohs & Baumeister, 2004). Consider for instance Sue, who is attending mass and tries very hard not to laugh out loud while thinking about a funny experience she had earlier that morning. It can be said that Sue is engaging in self-regulation at that moment. The focus of the present paper will be on these types of selfregulatory issues. Although self-regulation has been shown to be of significant importance for achieving success in life (e.g., Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988), self-regulatory breakdowns are observed quite frequently (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1996). Hence, it should come as no surprise that self-regulation has received much theoretical and empirical attention in social psychology and related fields over the last couple of decades (see, e.g., de Ridder, Lensvelt-Mulders, Finkenauer, Stok, & Baumeister, 2012, for a recent review concerning the link between trait self-regulation and behavior). According to the self-regulatory strength model, which is a prominent model in psychology (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), self-regulation taxes a limited self-regulatory resource that is akin to energy or strength and thus brings people into a state of resource depletion. This state reduces people’s capacity to self-regulate in the period following their previous self-regulatory effort. The aim of the present paper is to contribute to the literature on self-regulation and self-regulatory resource depletion by providing more insight into the psychological processes underlying self-regulation. Specifically, we intend to demonstrateinaseriesofstudiesthatengaginginself-regulationresults in the adoption of low-level construals. First, we review the relevant literature to deduct the hypothesis that engaging in self-regulation induces low-level construals. We move on to demonstrating this causal link between engaging in selfregulation and low-level construals in three studies. In the final section, we offer a summary of our findings, and we end with some concluding remarks.