22.2: Conclusion

In the previous sections we have explicated different theoretical explanations for the costliness of applying self-control and have discussed how sports-related performance is likely to hinge on effective allocation of self-control. We have also briefly presented the negative impact of prior mental exertion on subsequent sports-related performances. With the importance of self-control in sports being widely acknowledged and the rapid theoretical progress that has been made in recent years, several fascinating research questions remain. To conclude this chapter, we would like to discuss a set of research questions that we deem to be particularly interesting for further advancing our understanding of self-control in sports.

22.2.1. The Relevance of Sport-Specific Expertise for Self-Control Performance

It is reasonable to assume that athletes who are used to controlling their impulses during a sporting competition are more adept at doing so, meaning their self-control performance should not be as strongly affected by previous self-control demands as in beginners. To the best of our knowledge, there are only very few studies which have focused on this issue in sports-related settings (e.g., Martin et al., 2016). A notable exception is a recent study by Englert and colleagues (2020), in which they asked elite and amateur rifle shooters to perform two 1-hour shooting rounds consisting of 50 shots each. The shooters also reported their perceived level of self-control strength at the beginning of each shooting round and after 10 shots each. The results revealed that in amateurs, the level of perceived self-control strength decreased significantly over the course of each shooting round, while their shooting accuracy also decreased over time. Interestingly, there was neither a decrease in perceived self-control strength nor a significant drop-off in shooting accuracy in elite performers. These results illustrate how expert performers might be less likely to suffer from multiple self-control demands during a sporting competition and how this helps them to keep performing at a high level (see also Englert et al., under review). In a similar fashion, Martin et al. (2016) asked eleven professional and nine recreational road cyclists to complete a 20-min cycling time trial following a 30 min Stroop task (mental exertion condition) or a 10 min control task (control condition; order counterbalanced). The results revealed no significant differences in time trial performance between the two conditions for the professional cyclists, while recreational cyclists performed worse in the mental exertion condition. The question is though, why is that the case? One possible explanation might be that in order to achieve an elite status, athletes must generally be especially adept at controlling their impulses across several domains (e.g., forcing yourself to go to practice every day, to not eat too much candy, to not go out before a game day). According to De Ridder and colleagues (2012), some individuals are generally better at controlling themselves than others, as for some it might be a constant struggle to resist the last piece of cake, while for others it is rather easy. The general ability to control your impulses is referred to as trait self-control (Tangney et al., 2004). In line with this assumption, Wolff, Bertrams, and Schüler (2019) found out that youth soccer players with higher levels of trait self-control were more likely to be selected for a talent development program than players with lower levels of trait self-control. In the same vein, in a study by Toering and Jordet (2015), Division One soccer players in Norway were generally more adept at controlling their impulses than amateur players. If high levels of trait self-control are indeed required to achieve elite status in a specific sport, this would have an important impact on player drafting strategies: Tryouts should not only focus on sport-specific skills and the well-known psychological skills, but also assess each athletes’ self-control skills. A second explanation might be that repeatedly being confronted with the multiple self-control demands of a sporting competition makes the demands less demanding. For instance, for an elite rifle shooter it should be less difficult to ignore distracting stimuli than for an amateur, simply because he or she is used to it. If this is actually the case, even players with lower levels of trait self-control can achieve elite status. Given the fact that not all professional athletes seem to be capable of always regulating their impulses, this second explanation seems more likely. Future research is therefore highly necessary, to dig deeper into the relationship between sport-specific expertise and (self-control) performance.

22.2.2. Boredom as an Overlooked Self-Control Demand

Throughout this chapter, we have implicitly linked self-control with the completion of challenging and difficult tasks like completing an incongruent Stroop task or running a marathon. This is in line with the bulk of self-control research in the sports setting and beyond. However, recently it has been proposed that boredom, a sensation that occurs when tasks are over- or underchallenging and/or feel meaningless (Westgate & Wilson, 2018), might pose a substantial self-control demand (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020; Martarelli & Wolff, 2020). More specifically, boredom is thought to act as a signal that one’s resources should be deployed elsewhere (Bieleke & Wolff, in press), thereby making it harder to continue with an ongoing course of action (Bench & Lench, 2019; Danckert & Eastwood, 2020; Westgate & Wilson, 2018; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Supporting the link between boredom and self-control, preliminary evidence outside the sporting context shows that boredom makes it more difficult to adhere to a goal and self-control moderates how well people deal with these difficulties (Danckert et al., 2020; Bieleke et al., 2010; Wolff et al., 2020). Surprisingly, although the relevance of boredom in the context of repetitive athletic training has been emphasized already in the early parts of the 20^th century (Davies, 1926), research on boredom and self-control in sports is scarce (Wolff, Bieleke, Martarelli, & Danckert, 2021). We know of only one study that has assessed the link between both concepts in the sporting context: Wolff and colleagues showed that boredom and self-control combine into distinct latent personality profiles that are linked to the weekly amount of exercise (Wolff, Bieleke, Stähler, & Schüler, 2021): One profile was characterized by a combination of low boredom and high self-control and this was linked with more exercise. The other profile displayed the reverse pattern and was linked with relatively lower levels of exercise. Taken together, conceptual work, empirical evidence from outside the sporting context and first evidence from the sporting context all point towards a close link between boredom and self-control. Investigating how boredom modulates the self-control demands of sports and how boredom might be alleviated will be important and fascinating questions for future research.

22.2.3. Can Effort Be Valuable?

In this chapter, we have emphasized the intrinsic relationship between effort and self-control and have reiterated that the sensation of effort feels costly and that people, in general, try to avoid it. However, at times sport seems to be somewhat at odds with these premises. To illustrate, hobby runners who sign up for a marathon voluntarily pay entry fees for an event they have no hope of winning and apply considerable amounts of self-control to complete the race (Maxcy et al., 2019).Indeed, it has been argued that people do this not despite the associated effort but rather because it requires effort (Loewenstein, 1999). In this case, instead of reducing an activity’s value, effort appears to add value. This effort paradox has only recently been recognized by self-control researchers (Inzlicht et al., 2018) and sport seems to be ideally suited to further investigate this phenomenon (Wolff, Hirsch, et al., 2021). EVC theory indicates two ways how effort might indeed add value. First, the amount of effort that has gone into an achievement might affect its perceived value. For example, having mustered the self-control to go out for a run after a hard day at work might feel particularly rewarding. Second, applying self-control might become a secondary reinforcer in its own right. For example, an athlete who repeatedly learns to associate effort with value (e.g., “hard training makes me stronger!”) might start to seek out effortful activities irrespective of the outcome they yield. It is important to note that while ECV theory provides testable ways how effort might add value, this has so far been a theoretical blind spot that requires more research (Inzlicht et al., 2018). Therefore, investigating this effort paradox, particularly in the sports setting, appears to be a particularly promising question for future research.

22.2.4. Better Understanding Perception of Effort to Improve Our Knowledge on Self-Control

As previously described in this chapter, self-control is associated with the sensation of strain and labor. This sensation is traditionally defined in the exercise science literature as the perception of effort or the sense of effort (Marcora, 2010; Pageaux, 2016). Interestingly, as self-control is known to interact with mental fatigue, perception of effort has been identified as the key variable explaining the observed decreased performance in its presence (Marcora et al., 2009). Perception of effort is also, to the best of our knowledge, the only variable systematically altered by both physical and mental exertion inducing fatigue (Le Mansec et al., 2018; Pageaux & Lepers, 2016). The sensation of effort is also present in the physical and mental domain (Preston & Wegner, 2009). Indeed, effort is perceived when engaging in various tasks such as jogging, walking up the stairs, completing Sudoku, or revising for an exam. Therefore, it seems tempting to propose that investigating the perception of effort could be an ideal way of improving our knowledge of self-control. Other evidence of the potential interest of better understanding perception of effort to better understand self-control, is the close link between self-control and performance in the physical and mental domains (e.g., Englert, 2017, 2019). As self-control, effort and its perception are widely recognized in the psychophysiology literature to be a key determinant of performance (see the motivational intensity theory: e.g., Brehm & Self, 1989; Richter et al., 2016; and the psychobiological model of endurance performance: e.g., Marcora, 2019; Pageaux, 2014). Self-control is also interacting with pain (Silvestrini & Rainville, 2013; Silvestrini et al., 2020), another perception that is known to be inherently costly and to interact with performance (Torta et al., 2017). While this accumulation of evidence reinforces the rationale of better understanding perception of effort to improve our knowledge of self-control, it has to be acknowledged that so far, most of the research on self-control and perception of effort is performed in “silos”. Merging the literature from psychology, psychophysiology, neuroscience and exercise neurophysiology could be of great interest to better understand the overlap between self-control and perception of effort. Such multidisciplinary research would allow us to gain unique integrative knowledge of the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of self-control and perception of effort. This will most likely lead to the opportunity of creating, tailoring, and implementing unique interventions aiming at improving performance, such as brain endurance training (Dallaway et al., 2021; Marcora et al., 2015), mindfulness (Bernier et al., 2009; Stocker et al., 2019), or hypnosis (Barker et al., 2013; Pates et al., 2001). The rationale for researchers from the aforementioned disciplines to team together and unify their strength is strong as it cannot be ignored that our mind, and therefore our brain, interacts with our body to ensure optimal performance. Such a step forward approach would first require some clarification and consensus on the different definitions and constructs used in the exercise science literature to investigate the perception of effort (for more information, see Halperin & Emanuel, 2020; Pageaux, 2016).