Key result
Performing a self-control task is unlikely to reduce glucose levels relative to a control task or pre-task levels, challenging the model that glucose is a depletable resource for self-control.
Challenges the popular model that self-control depletes glucose as a resource, suggesting glucose acts as an input to decision-making instead.
Questions glucose depletion assumptions in self-control; challenges prevailing models and leaves mechanisms open for prospective research.
A currently popular model of self-control posits that the exertion of self-control relies on a resource, which is expended by acts of self-control, resulting in less of this resource being available for subsequent acts of self-control. Recently, glucose has been proposed as the resource in question. For this model to be correct, it must be the case that A) performing a self-control task reduces glucose levels relative to a control task and B) performing a self-control task reduces glucose relative to pre-task levels. Evidence from neurophysiology suggests that (A) is unlikely to be true, and the evidence surrounding (B) is mixed, and is unlikely to be true for subjects who have not recently fasted. From the standpoint of evolved function, glucose might better be thought of as an input to decision making systems rather than as a constraint on performance.
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Robert Kurzban (2010) conducted a review in Self-control. Self-control tasks vs. Control tasks was evaluated on Glucose levels. Performing a self-control task is unlikely to reduce glucose levels relative to a control task or pre-task levels, challenging the model that glucose is a depletable resource for self-control.
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